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Vincent Mennella is a Ph.D. candidate and graduate instructor in English at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Methodist University. He previously studied philosophy as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and he taught courses in philosophy, humanities, and English at a number of community colleges in the greater Houston area before beginning his Ph.D. studies at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.

His dissertation project, Making the Golden World: Allegories and Alchemies of Material Wealth in Early Modern Literature and Drama, dismantles a classical and Christian edifice that obscures the materialism and pragmatism of early modern poets and philosophers by bringing together two golden worlds long kept separate: the poet’s golden world as Sir Philip Sidney conceives of it in his Defence of Poesy and the golden world Sir Walter Ralegh claims to have discovered in the Americas.

Conference papers presented at the Sixteenth Century Society, the Renaissance Society of America, and ICMS Kalamazoo on worldmaking allegories, pastoral retreats, Ovidian metamorphoses, early-modern Orientalism, Spenserian intertextuality, and early modern drama reflect his range of research interests.

Current or past memberships in scholarly organizations include: the Modern Language Association, the Renaissance Society of America, the Sixteenth Century Society, the International Spenser Society, the Shakespeare Association of America, the International Courtly Literature Society, and the Texas Community College Teachers Association.

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

“Vexed Relationships with Rome: Arthur’s Dragon Crest and Spenser’s Representations of Conquest, Empire, and Christendom in The Faerie Queene.” Forthcoming: Explorations in Renaissance Culture 50, no.1-2 (2024):40–67.

“A Concordia Discors of Justice and Lucre: The Conquest of a Land of Gold in Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana,” (Under review).

“Calidore innamorato: Spenser’s Allegory of Courtesy and the Renaissance Poetics of Heroism Arising from Erotic Desire in The Faerie Queene,” (Under review).

Selected Honors, Awards, Grants, and Fellowships:

Shakespeare Association of America: Graduate Student Travel Grant

Renaissance Society of America: 2024 Graduate Student Travel Grant

International Spenser Society: 2022-2023 Anne Lake Prescott Graduate Student Travel Grant (Inaugural Recipient)

International Courtly Literature Society: 2019-2020 Emerging Scholar Grant

ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ Methodist University: 2022 Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Award (English Department Nominee)

Lone Star College, Kingwood: Adjunct Faculty Excellence Award, Division of Humanities