Melissa Pullara, PhD
Academic Title: Assistant Professor
Office: EA3132
Phone: 403.440.7719
Email: mpullara@mtroyal.ca
Education
BA Honours (Queen's University)
MA (Queens's Universtiy)
PhD (Carleton University)
Melissa Pullara is an early modernist who specializes in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. Her doctoral thesis analyzed how the psychological affects of human encounters with the supernatural in a variety of early modern plays (including those by George Chapman, John Marston, Thomas Middleton, and William Shakespeare) implicitly manifest socio-political critiques of 16th and 17th century English gender and power systems. Her recent work focuses on the link between early modern accusations of witchcraft and modern discourse surrounding female abuse, looking particularly at how the dramatic revival and reinterpretation of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays where women are demonized as witches resonate differently in the #MeToo era. Having taught at four different Canadian institutions, she has had the opportunity to teach a diverse array of courses, from fantasy and science fiction literature to medieval and early modern world history. But she loves teaching early modern literature most, particularly non-Shakespearean texts.
Teaching Statement:
As an English literature professor, my goal is to help students explore how studying literature can expand their understanding of society and one another and provide them with the tools to apply what they learn from the texts we study to the world outside the classroom. I seek to achieve this using three strategies: modern relevance (striving to create bridges between early works of literature and modern issues to demonstrate the texts’ ongoing relevance to current times); diversity and inclusion of voices (tackling problematic issues in early literature, such as racism and misogyny, and highlighting the works of minority scholars doing research on these topics); and active student learning and engagement (creating opportunities in class for students to engage with the material on their own and in groups, and curating assessments which ask students to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of formats, both creative and more traditionally academic).
Scholarly Activity:
Pullara, Melissa. “Ties that Bind: The Transformative Power of the Love Charm Ribbon in Middleton’s The Witch.” Arcana Natura vol. 3 (Spring 2022): pp.163-184.
Pullara, Melissa. “Reasoning with Witchcraft: Moral Deliberation in Macbeth”. Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions, edited by Fabrizio Conti. Advances in the History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion Vol. 1. Trivent Publishing, 2020. Pp. 313-336.
Pullara, Melissa. “Devils, the Divine, and Despair in Doctor Faustus”. Journal of Marlowe Studies vol 1 (Fall 2020): pp. 99-121.
Pullara, Melissa. “Oedipus in Arcadia: The Political Implications of Inversion in Elizabethan Prophecy.” Prophecy and Conspiracy in Early Modern England, edited by Giuliana Iannacarro and Massimiliano Morini. The British Institute of Florence and the Italian Association of Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies, Winter 2018. Pp. 29-40.
Pullara, Melissa. “Bourdieu and the Bard: Reimagining the Field of Cultural Production.” Oxford Research in English Journal vol. 3 (Summer 2016): pp. 32-42.
Selected Grants, Honours and Awards:
Teaching Excellence Award Nominee (University of New Brunswick)
Outstanding Teaching Award Nominee (Carleton University)