William (Bill) Leahy

Bill has been at Brunel since 1996, when he began his PhD studies in Shakespeare’s History plays and Elizabethan Processional literature. Immediately before that, he worked as an English Language teacher for the Adult Education Service in Berlin, Germany. Bill moved there in July 1989 and witnessed the historic fall of the Berlin Wall in November of that year. He married his wife, Christiane in September 1995 and then moved back to England. He has two sons.

Research Overview

Bill's research specialises in two fields, Shakespeare and Elizabethan Processions. His earlier interest was in the role and representation of the common people in Elizabethan and Shakespearean literature, and he has published widely on both subjects. Much of this culminated in a book entitled Elizabethan Triumphal Processions, which was published in May 2005.  His more recent research interest is in the Shakespeare Authorship Question, and 2010 saw the publication of his edited collection Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question (Continuum, 2010). He is currently supervising PhD students in projects dealing with Shakespeare and Authorship. 

Teaching Activity

Bill has been involved in teaching English modules since he started at Brunel, though he has specialised in teaching Shakespeare and the Renaissance. Much of his teaching is now at Master’s level as he is the convenor of the MA in Shakespeare Authorship Studies. Bill enjoys teaching very much and was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s award for Teaching Excellence in 2005.

Bill is interested in the Shakespeare Authorship Question as a cultural phenomenon. This is a field of research treated in academia with suspicion, but he believes it is a legitimate subject of study for three major reasons. Firstly, it has a history that begins at the time that Shakespeare wrote his plays. There are records which strongly suggest that there was an authorship question concerning Shakespeare as early as 1592. Secondly, the Authorship Question produces much in the way of literature, both paper and electronic. Thirdly, the subject is one that interests millions of people the world over. It is for this reason that he founded the MA in Shakespeare Authorship Studies, the only one of its kind in the world. It is for this reason also, that he published the book, Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question. For a clear exposition of Bill’s view on this subject, please go to http://www.esu.org/news/item.asp?n=12890

On Monday 6 June 2011, the ESU hosted the Shakespeare Authorship Debate, where Dr William Leahy joined director Roland Emmerich, Professor Stanley Wells CBE, Professor Michael Dobson, Rev Dr Paul Edmondson, and Charles Beauclerk. The chairman for the evening was James Probert.To a packed room, the eminent panellists argued, under the motion This House Believes that William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the plays and poems attributed to him.

Publications

Journal Papers

(2011) Leahy, W. and Whetstone, T., Women's Clubs: Dispersing Shakespeare Across America, Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations 15.2 (October 2011) : 193- 204

(2009) Leahy, W., Introduction: Questioning Shakespeare, Critical Survey 21 (2) : 1- 6

(2009) Leahy, W., Is Hamlet Out of Date?, Journal of Dalian University 4 60- 63

(2007) Leahy, W., For pure need: Violence, terror and the common people in Henry VI, Part 2, Shakespeare Jahrbuch 143 71- 83 Download publication

(2003) Leahy, WJ., 'Thy hunger-starved men': Shakespeare's Henry plays and the contemporary lot of the common soldier, Parergon: Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies 20 (2) : 119- 134 Download publication

(2003) Leahy, WJ., Propaganda or a Record of Events? Richard Mulcaster’s The Passage Of Our Most Drad Soveraigne Lady Quene Elyzabeth Through The Citie Of London Westminster The Daye Before Her Coronacion, Early Modern Literary Studies 9 (1) : 1- 20 Download publication

(2003) Leahy, W., 'You cannot show me’: Two Tudor Coronation Processions, Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII and the Staging of Anne Boleyn, EnterText: Renaissance Renegotiations 3 (1) Download publication

(2002) Leahy, WJ., “All would be royal”: The effacement of disunity in Shakespeare’s Henry V, Shakespeare Jahrbuch 138 89- 98 Download publication

Book Chapters

(2010) Leahy, W., Dominic Dromgoole (Artistic director, Globe Theatre, London), Interviewed by William Leahy. In: Leahy, W. ed. Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question. London : Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd 150- 157

(2010) Leahy, W., Introduction: the Life of the Author. In: Leahy, W. ed. Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question. London : Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd 1- 10

(2010) Leahy, W., Mark Rylance (Former artistic director, Globe Theatre, London), Interviewed by William Leahy. In: Leahy, W. ed. Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical Perspectives on the Authorship Question. London : Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd 142- 149

(2010) Leahy, W., Shakinomics: or, the Shakespeare authorship question and the undermining of traditional authority. In: Leahy, W. ed. Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical perspectives on the Authorship Question. London : Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd 114- 124

(2009) Leahy, W., The Shakespeare authorship question – A suitable subject for academia?. In: Wright, D. ed. Discovering Shakespeare: A Festschrift in Honour of Isabel Holden. Concordia University Press 5- 11 Download publication

Books

(2010) Leahy, W., Bennett, A., Maley, W., Rubinstein, W., Royle, N., Gaston, S., Holderness, G., Schruijer, S., Rylance, M. and Dromgoole, D., Shakespeare and His Authors: Critical perspectives on the authorship question. Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd

(2005) Leahy, W., Elizabethan triumphal processions. Aldershot: Ashgate