Staff profile

Career

Barbara Ravelhofer is Professor in English Literature at Durham and a Research Associate of the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge. After a degree in English and German Literature from the University of Munich she continued for her Ph.D. at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at St John’s College. She has also held Visiting Fellowships at the Universities of Bologna, Princeton, and Harvard.

Research

Apart from her general interest in English Literature and Renaissance Studies, Prof. Ravelhofer has written on European spectacle from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century, editing and book history in comparative perspective, as well as oral forms of literature. Her edition of the French dance treatise Louange de la danse (2000) explores the life and professional practices of dancers and musicians in early modern London and Paris. Her book The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (2006) studies illusionistic theatre of the Renaissance. Drawing on a massive amount of documentary evidence relating to English productions as well as spectacle in France, Italy, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, the book elucidates professional ballet, theatre management, and dramatic performance at the early Stuart court. Currently she is working on a book about English court theatre, iconoclasm and the dawn of the Civil War. 

Prof. Ravelhofer would welcome students with research interests in early modern English literature and comparative literature, as well as medieval and Renaissance dance, costume, and drama.

Current Projects

Records of Early English Drama North-East
Sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

REED-NE aims to find, catalogue and edit all records pertaining to music, spectacle, ceremony, dance and theatre in England's North-East from about the eighth century to 1642. Funded by the AHRC for the period 2013-18, the project was directed by Prof. John McKinnell (PI) and Prof. Ravelhofer (Co-I) in collaboration with the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS) Durham, the Cathedral and Durham's World Heritage Site. Our team comprises editors from the UK, US and Canada, two postdoctoral researchers, and two PhD students, and we coordinate our activities with the REED headquarters at the University of Toronto. For further details see the project website.

The Complete Works of James Shirley (OUP)
Sponsored by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

James Shirley (1596-1666) is a Caroline writer in the tradition of the great Elizabethans and Jacobeans. An innovative dramatist specializing in tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, masque, pastoral, entertainment, morality, and neo-miracle, Shirley wrote for a wide variety of theatres, ranging from the Blackfriars to the first public playhouse in Dublin, but he also composed poems and grammars. Shirley’s strong female characters prepared the ground for women on the Restoration stage. Critics still appreciate his elegant craftsmanship, his fast-paced, witty dialogues, and his detached portrayal of social manners. The Complete Works of James Shirley (gen. eds T. Grant, E. Giddens, and B. Ravelhofer) will comprise a corpus of around 50 works in 10 volumes, including plays, poems, and prose. It currently involves over thirty scholars from the UK, US, Germany, and South Africa. The Complete Works of James Shirley has had initial support from the British Academy. A major AHRC research grant (Principal Investigator: Prof. Ravelhofer) funded an old-spelling online edition as well as some of the OUP modern-spelling edition of Shirley's oeuvre. For details see the project website.

Review Articles

Barbara Ravelhofer has written many review articles in: Renaissance Quarterly, The Seventeenth Century, Review of English Studies, Kritikon, Internationales Archiv f. Sozialgeschichte der Literatur (IASL) and Atlantic Studies.

• 2007: Refereeing Responsibilities: Member of AHRC peer review college (2007-)

  Reader for Cambridge University Press, Blackwell, Ashgate and Oxford University Press

  Reviewer for Renaissance Quarterly, IASL, Atlantic Studies, Renaissance Studies, and Kritikon

  Referee for Leverhulme Trust

  Advisory Board Member of "Dance Chronicle" Journal

• 2007: Grants: AHRC Follow-on-Funding, 2022: £98,810, held as PI, with CoI H. Sequera, Durham University. Arts Council grant, 2016: £14,948, held as PI. AHRC research grant, 2013-18: £ 954,316.00, held as Co-I, with PI Prof. John McKinnell, Durham University. AHRC research grant, 2007: £ 832,207.00, held as Principal Investigator together with E. Giddens, Anglia Ruskin University, and T. Grant, University of Warwick. 2004: Mellon Foundation Publication grant.
• 2003: Fellowships: Visiting Fellow, Princeton University (2002-3)Senior Visiting Fellow, University of Bologna (2001-2)Junior Research Fellow, St John's College, Cambridge (1997-2001)

Authored book

• Ravelhofer, B. (2006). The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music. Oxford University Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2000). B. de Montagut: Louange de la danse. RTM

Chapter in book

• Ravelhofer, B. (2024). Shakespeare/Play/Dance. In E. Whipday (Ed.), Shakespeare/Play: Contemporary Readings in Playing, Playmaking and Performance. Bloomsbury
• Ravelhofer, B. (2021). Regional Performance as Intangible Cultural Heritage. In J. McKinnell, & D. Wyatt (Eds.), Early performers and performance in the Northeast of England (161-182). ARC Humanities Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2020). Visual Effects in the Wedding Masques of 1613. In N. Hayton, H. Hubach, & M. Neumeier (Eds.), Churfürstlicher Hochzeitlicher Heimführungs Triumph (277-290). Verlag Regionalkultur
• Ravelhofer, B. (2019). Rituale der Sterblichkeit: Der Totentanz in Bild und Aufführung [Rituals of Mortality: The Dance of Death in Image and Performance]. In K. Stocker, & H. Walsdorf (Eds.), Ritual – Tanz – Buehne (89-114). Leipzig University Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2016). Introduction. In B. Ravelhofer (Ed.), James Shirley and early modern theatre : new critical perspectives (1-16). Routledge
• Ravelhofer, B. (2016). Shirley's Tragedies. In B. Ravelhofer (Ed.), James Shirley and early modern theatre : new critical perspectives (86-107). Routledge
• Ravelhofer, B. (2015). Equestrian Ballet as a Representative of Cultural Change in Europe, c.1500-1700. In S. Fielitz (Ed.), “... that I wished myself a horse”: The Horse as Representative of Cultural Change in Systems of Thought (149-174). Universitätsverlag Winter
• Ravelhofer, B. (2012). Middleton and Dance. In G. Taylor, & T. Henley (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Middleton (130-147). Oxford University Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2012). Understanding Horses: Equestrian Ballet and Early Modern Political Thought. In S. Fielitz, & U. Meyer (Eds.), Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Weiss (101-122). Universitätsverlag Winter
• Ravelhofer, B. (2011). History and Story: Voivode Dracula in Fifteenth-Century German Manuscript, Print, and Oral Poetry. In M. Ed. Spremic (Ed.), English Language and Literature Studies: Image, Identity, Reality (17-36). Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade
• Ravelhofer, B. (2011). Choreography as Commonplace. In D. Cowling, & M. Bruun (Eds.), Commonplace Culture in Western Europe in the Early Modern Period I: Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Revolt (209-228). Peeters Publishers
• Ravelhofer, B. (2010). Ancient Greece, Dance, and the English Masque. In F. Ed. Macintosh (Ed.), The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World: Responses to Greek and Roman Dance (211-223). Oxford University Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2010). 'Dance'. In J. Ed. Sanders (Ed.), Ben Jonson in Context (171-180). Cambridge University Press
• Ravelhofer, B. (2007). News Drama: The Tragic Subject of Charles I. In T. Grant, & B. Ravelhofer (Eds.), English Historical Drama, 1500-1660: Forms Outside the Canon (179-201). Palgrave
• Ravelhofer, B. (2007). English Masques. In M. Kant (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ballet (32-41). Cambridge University Press
• Grant, T., & Ravelhofer, B. (2007). 'Introduction'. In T. Grant, & B. Ravelhofer (Eds.), English Historical Drama, 1500-1660: Forms Outside the Canon (1-31). Palgrave
• Ravelhofer, B. (2007). 'Queen Henrietta Maria's Dramatic Activities'. In R. Ed. Walthaus, & M. Corporaal (Eds.), Heroines of the Golden StAge: Women and Drama in Spain and England, 1500-1700 (129-142). Reichenberger
• Ravelhofer, B. (2005). Variatio alla turca: Byron's The Giaour. In C. Jansohn, & E. B. Plachta (Eds.), Varianten - Variants - Variantes (157-165). Niemeyer
• Ravelhofer, B. (2005). 'Histrio and Historian: Imperial Symbolism in the Gedechtnus Works of Maximilian I'. In R. Suntrup, J. Veenstra, & E. A. Bollmann (Eds.), The Mediation of Symbol in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times - Medien der Symbolik in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (257-273). Peter Lang
• Ravelhofer, B. (2004). Stage Design as Multimedia Composition in Early Modern England. In M. Hoogvliet (Ed.), Multi-Media Compositions from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period (105-119). Peeters Publishers
• Ravelhofer, B. (2004). Dancing at the Court of Queen Elizabeth. In C. Jansohn (Ed.), Queen Elizabeth I: Past and Present (101-15). Lit
• Ravelhofer, B. (2003). The Medium of Plagiarism: Rogue Choreographers in Early Modern London. In P. Kewes (Ed.), Plagiarism in early modern England (134-148). Palgrave Macmillan
• Ravelhofer, B. (1998). 'Virgin Wax' and 'Hairy Men-Monsters': Unstable Movement Codes in the Stuart Masque. In D. Bevington, & E. P. Holbrook (Eds.), The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (244-272). Cambridge UP

Edited book

• Ravelhofer, B. (Ed.). (2016). James Shirley and Early Modern Theatre: New Critical Perspectives. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315590271
• Grant, T., & Ravelhofer, B. (Eds.). (2007). English Historical Drama, 1500-1660: Forms Outside the Canon. Palgrave

Journal Article

• Ravelhofer, B. (2021). Shakespeare and Dance. Shakespeare-Jahrbuch (Bochum), 157, 13-30
• Ravelhofer, B. (2013). Censorship and Poetry at the Court of Charles I: The Case of Georg Rodolf Weckherlin. English Literary Renaissance, 43(2), 268-307. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6757.12009
• Ravelhofer, B. (2007). Burlesque Ballet, a Ballad and a Banquet in Ben Jonson’s The Gypsies Metamorphos’d (1621). Dance Research, 25(2), 144-155. https://doi.org/10.3366/drs.2007.25.2.144
• Ravelhofer, B. (2006). Non-Verbal Meaning in Caroline Private Theatre: William Cavendish's and James Shirley's The Varietie (c.1641). The Seventeenth Century, 21(2), 195-214
• Ravelhofer, B. (2005). ‘“Beasts of Recreacion”: Henslowe’s White Bears.’. English Literary Renaissance, 32(2), 287-323. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6757.00012
• Ravelhofer, B. (2005). Oral Poetry and the Printing Press in Byron's The Giaour (1813). Romanticism, 11(1), 23-40. https://doi.org/10.3366/rom.2005.11.1.23
• Ravelhofer, B. (2002). ‘Virtual Theatres’. Jahrbuch für Computerphilologie, 4, 133-50
• Ravelhofer, B. (1999). Bureaucrats and Courtly Cross-Dressers in the Shrovetide Masque and The Shepherd's Paradise. English Literary Renaissance, 29(1), 75-96
• Ravelhofer, B. (1997). Memorable Movements. Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 22(1), 1-18

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Ravelhofer, B. (2019). Souls of the North
• Ravelhofer, B., & Baert, L. (2016). The Sacred and the Profane

Scholarly Edition

• Schlottermüller, U. (., Ravelhofer, B., & Daniels, V. (2000). Johann Georg Pasch: Anleitung sich bei grossen Herrn Höfen und andern beliebt zu machen
• Alexander, G., & Ravelhofer, B. (1999). Nevitt's Memorial. An online edition