Terence Hawkes

Terence Hawkes (b. 13 May 1932, d. 16 January 2014) revolutionized the disciplines of Shakespeare studies and English studies, including the way both are taught in the British academy, during the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. Professor of English at the University of Cardiff in Wales, he was a Shakespeare scholar, literary theorist, and literary critic extraordinaire. His work is equally marked by intellectual rigor, adventurousness, and incisive wit. He wrote, edited, and published eleven books throughout the course of his career, most of them devoted to Shakespeare. He earned his doctoral degree at Cardiff University in 1955. Following teaching stints at SUNY (State University of New York), Buffalo, in the United States during 1957–1959 and at the University of Aberwystwyth, Wales, during 1960–1961, he spent the bulk of his teaching career at Cardiff University (1961–1999). Later in his career, he is best known for having spearheaded a theoretical and critical approach to interpreting Shakespeare’s texts known as presentism. Presentism is built on the premise of recognizing the audience member’s, the reader’s, and the critic’s “situatedness” in the present moment, rather than occluding that fact. Presentism can be viewed as existing in theoretical tension with new historicism, especially its investment in the past, specifically, early modern England. However, presentism and new historicism share common ground to the extent that both take into consideration the relationship between text and context—whether that context is the twenty-first century or early modernity. Earlier in his career, Hawkes is best known for his part in transforming the discipline of English studies, more broadly construed. He advanced the influx of French thought of theorists such as Derrida and Foucault within the British academy through his own publications and his general editorship of two influential academic publishers’ series, New Accents and Accents on Shakespeare, both for Routledge, and an academic journal, Textual Practice. To this end, and in collaboration with colleagues Catherine Belsey, Christopher Norris, and Chris Weedon, Hawkes co-founded the Centre for Cultural and Critical Theory at the University of Cardiff. He was also instrumental in founding the British Shakespeare Association and its journal, Shakespeare.