Dr Hes Bradley BA MA PhD

• PhD (Oxford Brookes University)
• MA (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham)
• BA (University of Cambridge)

I studied for a BA in English Literature at the University of Cambridge. I took my MA in Shakespeare and Creativity here at the Shakespeare Institute. Following that, I completed a PhD in the moon as a character in the dramatic works of John Lyly and Shakespeare at Oxford Brookes University. Since then, I have taught a range of subjects at undergraduate level (including Shakespeare, postcolonialism, and Creative Writing). I have also worked as an Associate Researcher for the Poetry Centre at Oxford Brookes, and as a project manager in community gardening initiatives. I came back to teach on the postgraduate Shakespeare and Creativity module at the Shakespeare Institute in 2020 and I’ve now returned once more as a Teaching Fellow in February 2023.   

I taught undergraduate modules on Shakespeare and postcolonialism at Oxford Brookes. I also taught the MA course Shakespearience at the Shakespeare Institute. I led the Creative Writing programme at the University of Buckingham for the past three terms and designed and have taught undergraduate modules on writing the novel, the short story, and lyric poetry.

Outside of the academy, I have designed and taught interdisciplinary courses on creative writing, sustainability, biodiversity, digital literacy and early modern ecology in partnership with the RSC and community groups. 

At the Shakespeare Institute, I supervise MA dissertations, and contribute to postgraduate modules Practice as Research, Ensemble, Plays and Poems, and Shakespeare in Society.

My research interests are in John Lyly, Shakespeare, queer studies, early modern cosmology, creative-critical practice, community-based ecology, ecocriticism, and creative writing.

My research focus is currently on the production of a monograph on Lyly and Shakespeare which looks at the representation of the moon as an alternative world and as a dramatic character on the stage and focuses on intersections of gender, sexuality, and colonialism. I have previously published work on Lyly, queer theory, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and on celebrating Shakespeare as civic practice.

My other current research builds on recent archival work into early modern bestiaries and herbals.  It looks at how these texts both corroborate and disrupt dominant ideologies of the period which construct ‘nature’ and ‘normality’ and connect them to one another. Focusing specifically on Pliny’s Natural History (translated by Philemon Holland, 1601) and early modern responses to it, the work examines the creation and development of the “human>nature” hierarchy and at early modern queer versions of nature.

I have also published poetry and I have written/edited/been involved with creative works, including plays, a contemporary herbal and bestiary, an anthology of poetry by military veterans, and I am currently working on a novel.