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Sarah-Gray Lesley is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation contributes to the growing field of critical whiteness studies by arguing that the cultural construction of white womanhood emerged, in part, from representational strategies developed in early modern English literature. Lesley analyzes texts such as Edmund Spenser’s 'Faerie Queene', William Shakespeare’s 'Titus Andronicus', and Aphra Behn’s 'Oroonoko', while considering the histories of England’s increasing involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, global capitalism, and colonialism. Her work reveals how socio-economic shifts gave rise to the nascent racial logic of white femininity as tropes of sexual reproduction and commodity consumption. Lesley's research includes a digital humanities project, 'Beshrew', which is led by Dr. Ellen MacKay and reimagines early modern digital variorum editions of Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew'. In addition to her research, she has served as the graduate coordinator and lecturer for the University of Chicago’s study abroad program in London, and in 2022, she received the Dean’s Award for Graduate Student Teaching Excellence.
Department of Philosophy