Pacific Faculty Member Awarded Fellowship for English Renaissance Research

Dr. Elizabeth Tavares, assistant professor of English literature at Pacific University, has received an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of $3,500 to conduct research this summer at the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif.

Tavares was selected for this prestigious fellowship by a panel of scholars in the humanities through a rigorous, peer-reviewed application process. She will build on previous research she conducted on the lost 16th-century play, Tamar Cham, for an upcoming article tentatively titled “With Amozins, Heads, and Drom: Genghis Khan on the English Renaissance Stage."

Tavares will examine a number of primary documents that attest to the ways in which early moderns perceived those now referred to as “Mongols.”

Her work is intended to close the gap in research on how early moderns perceived those peoples living between Russia and China, whom they called ‘Tartarians'."

“I am aiming to connect their representation to larger conversations about race in early modern England, how race played out on London stages, and what impact those representations had on the theatre industry and economy in Renaissance England,” she said.

The Huntington Library is a renowned collections-based educational and research institution that is home to an extensive collection of holdings in American and British literature and history, as well as art history and the history of science, with collections ranging from the 11th century to present day.   

For more information, please contact Dr. Tavares at 503-352-2801 or etavares@pacificu.edu.