Timothy Billings

Chellis House Calendar of Events Special Programs & Links Feminist of the Year Students & Alumni WAGS Newsletters Video Archive Contact Us

Office Hours:
Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday: 4:00-5:00pm

Timothy Billings

Associate Professor of English and American Literatures

Axinn Center at Starr Library 300

Web Site

Degrees, Specializations & Interests:
Shakespeare; Early Modern Drama; Literature & Culture; Theory & Cultural Studies; Orientalism; Translation Studies; Travel Writing; Baroque Prose; Metaphysical Poetry

Education

M.A., Sinology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, December 2007

* Middlebury Summer Language School, Classical Chinese, Middlebury College, 2006

Ph.D., English Literature, Cornell University, January 1997

M.A., English Literature, Cornell University, June 1994

M.F.A., Poetry, Cornell University, January 1992

* Inter-University Program in Chinese Language and Literature (Stanford Center), Taipei, Taiwan, Summers of 1990 & 1992

B.A., with Distinction in English Literature, Pomona College, 1987

Awards and Honors

American Academy in Rome, Visiting Scholar, "Sinological Research at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and the Archivio dei Gesuiti," Rome, Italy, March-April 2007

Undergraduate Collaborative Research Fund Award, "Preparing a Glossary for Matteo Ricci's Jiaoyou lun 交友論" with Liz Lyons and Julio Chong, Middlebury College, Spring 2007

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, New Directions Fellowship, "Sinological Methods for Renaissance Travel Writing," School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2006-2007

Ada Howe Kent Award, for research, "Chinese Editions of Shakespeare," Taipei, Taiwan, Middlebury College, January 2006

NEH Summer Institute Grant, "Handwritten Worlds of Early Modern England," Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. June-July 2005

Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Publication Subvention Award, "A Facsimile Critical Edition of Victor Segalen's Stèles / 古今碑錄 from Wesleyan University Press," May 2005

Shakespeare Association of America Annual Open Paper Contest Winner, "Squashing the Shard-Borne Beetle Crux," March 2005

Folger Shakespeare Library Short-term Research Fellowship, "Glossing Shakespeare: Reading the Plays from the Bottom of the Page," Washington D.C., July-August 2004

Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, co-recipient of a major grant for "Shakespeare in Asia," an international conference at Stanford University, January 2004

NEH Fellowship (half-year grant), "Bilingual Critical Edition of Victor Segalen's Stèles," January-June 2003

Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship, "Bilingual Critical Edition of Victor Segalen's Stèles," Residency Grant, Bogliasco, Italy, March-April 2003

Undergraduate Collaborative Research Fund Award, "Reading Chinese Sources for Victor Segalen's Stèles," with Anna Bautista, Middlebury College, Spring 2003

Camargo Foundation Fellowship, "Bilingual Critical Edition of Victor Segalen's Stèles," Residency Grant, Cassis, France, September-December 2002

Freeman Foundation Fellowship, "U.S. and East Asia: A Search for Common Values," Salzburg, Austria, Salzburg Seminar, June 2001

Ada Howe Kent Award, curricular development, "Shakespeare in London and Stratford," London and Stratford, U.K., Middlebury College, June 2001

Presidential Fellowship, "Salzburg Seminar: Shakespeare Around the Globe," Salzburg, Austria, Middlebury College, February 2000

Guilford Memorial Dissertation Award, for doctoral dissertation, "Illustrating China: Emblem, Autopsy, and Utopia in Early Modern European Writing," advisors: Tim Murray, Barbara Correll, Walter Cohen, Naoki Sakai; Cornell University, May 1997

Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, one year of support for dissertation writing, English Department, Cornell University, 1995-96

Martin Sampson Teaching Award, for distinguished graduate student teaching, English Department, Cornell University, 1995

Hu Shih Memorial Award, curricular development, "Contemporary Chinese Cinema," Taipei, Taiwan, Cornell East Asia Program, Cornell University, Summer 1992

FLAS Fellowship Award, Mandarin, Inter-University Program in Chinese Language and Literature (Stanford Center), Taipei, Taiwan, Cornell University, Summer 1992

Hu Shih Memorial Award, "Taiwanese New Wave Cinema," Taipei, Taiwan, Cornell East Asia Program, Winter 1991

Chasen Memorial Long-Poem Prize, for M.F.A. thesis, "Fu / 復: The Point of Return" (original poetry and translation), Cornell University, 1990

Sage Graduate Fellowship, M.F.A. in poetry, Cornell University, 1988-89

Best Senior Critical Essay Prize, Pomona College, 1987

Best Senior Creative Writing Prize, Pomona College, 1987

Teaching Experience

Associate Professor of English, Middlebury College (2005-)

Women and 17th-Century Theatre (Senior Seminar), Spring 2006, Spring 2008
Interpretation of Literature (ENGL 203), Spring 2006
Shakespeare: The Man and the Myth (First Year Seminar), Fall 2005, Fall 2007
Shakespeare and Contexts (ENGL 330), Fall 2005, Fall 2007
Senior Comprehensive Program, Winter 2007.

Assistant Professor of English, Middlebury College (1998-2005):

World Literature (LI101), Spring 2005, Fall 2003, Spring 2002, Fall 2000
Renaissance Zoography (ENGL 1006), Winter 2005
Shakespeare and Contexts (ENGL 330 and EL 321), Spring 2004, Fall 2004, Fall 2001, Spring 2001, Spring 2000, Fall 1998
Renaissance Drama (EL 324 and ENGL 216), Spring 2005, Spring 2004, Fall 1999, Spring 2008
Foundations: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton (ENGL 204), Fall 2004, Spring 2000, Spring 1999
Shakespeare and the Politics of Appropriation (Senior Seminar, EL 400), Fall 2003
Nature's Renaissance (EL 311), Spring 2002
Shakespeare in London and Stratford (*Off-campus Course, EL 003), Winter 2002
Renaissance Emblem Literature (First Year Seminar, FYS 003), Fall 2001
Renaissance Melancholy (EL 032), Winter 2001
Interpretation of Literature (EL 203), Spring 2001, Fall 1998
Shakespeare: The Movie (Senior Seminar, EL 423), Fall 2000, Spring 1999
Senior Comprehensive Program, Winter 2000 and Winter 1999
Dreams of Cleopatra (First Year Seminar, FYS 013), Fall 1999
Independent Study in Writing Poetry (EL 700-701), Fall 2004, Spring 1999, Fall 1998

Visiting Assistant Professor, Colgate University (1997-98):

17th Century Literature: Topics in Theory and Early Modern Literature (ENGL 386), Spring 1998
Approaches to Literature and Culture: Dreams of Cleopatra (ENGL 205), Spring 1998, Fall 1997
Creative Writing Workshop (ENGL 217), Fall 1997
Understanding China: Culture, Identity, and the "West" (CORE 165), Fall 1997

Lecturer, Cornell University (1996-1997):

Introduction to Drama: Renaissance and Restoration (ENGL 272), Fall 1996
Freshman Writing Seminar: Dreams of Cleopatra (Engl 105), Spring 1997

Graduate Teaching Assistantships, Cornell University (1993-94):

Shakespeare (ENGL 327), Fall 1994, for Barbara Correll; Fall 1993, for Gordon Teskey

Graduate Instructor, Freshman Writing Seminars, Cornell University, (1989-93):

Shakespeare and Film (ENGL 127), Spring 1993
Writing About Film (ENGL 108), Spring 1995, Spring 1991, Spring 1992
Contemporary Chinese Cinema (Asian Studies, AS 108), Fall 1992
Literatures of Fantasy (ENGL 165), Fall 1989, Spring 1990

M.F.A. Lecturer, Cornell University (1990-91):

Creative Writing: Poetry and Fiction (ENGL 280), 1990-91

Books

Stèles / 古今碑錄, by Victor Segalen: A Facsimile Critical Edition, co-authored with Christopher Bush. Wesleyan University Press, 2007. (Winner of a Publication Subsidy Award from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, July 2005. ☞http://www.steles.org).

Glossing Shakespeare: Reading the Plays from the Bottom of the Page (forthcoming in the Shakespeare series at Palgrave Macmillan).

On Friendship / Jiaoyou lun 交友論 (1595), by Matteo Ricci, translated and annotated (in progress).

Illustrating China (in progress).

Publications

"Untranslation Theory: The Nestorian Stele and the Jesuit Illustration of China." Sinographies: Writing China, ed. Eric Hayot, Haun Saussy, and Steven Yao (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007), 89-114.

"Masculine in Case: Grammar Lessons and Gender Identity in Hic Mulier and The Merry Wives of Windsor." Class, Boundary and Social Discourse in the Renaissance, ed. Alexander C. Y. Huang, I-Chun Wang, and Mary Theis (Taiwan: National Sun Yat-sen University, 2007), 87-106.

"Glossing Shakespeare in Chinese Translation: Liang Shiqiu, Zhu Shenghao, and 暴風雨 (The Tempest)," Shakespeare Yearbook 2006: Shakespeare in China, ed. Yang Lingui and Douglas Brooks (in press, editorial delays).

"The Emperor of China His Letter to the Queene / 1600," The Folger Institute: From the Archive: Handwritten Worlds of Early Modern England [a transcription and translation with notes of a two-page manuscript letter purporting to be an Italian translation of a Chinese letter to Queen Elizabeth] (Folger MS V.a. 321) ☞http://www.folger.edu/html/folger_institute/mm/EssayTB.html

"Squashing the Shard-Borne Beetle Crux: A Hard Case with a Few Pat Readings," Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 434-47.
☞http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/shakespeare_quarterly/v056/56.4billings.pdf

"Two New Sources for Shakespeare's Bawdy French" (Notes and Queries, vol. 2, no. 52, June 2005): 49-51. ☞http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/52/2/202

"Jesuit Fish in Chinese Nets: Athanasius Kircher and the Translation of the Nestorian Tablet," Representations, vol. 87 (Summer 2004), 1-42. ☞http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/rep.2004.87.1.1

"Caterwauling Cataians: The Genealogy of a Gloss," Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 1-28. ☞http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/shakespeare_quarterly/v054/54.1billings.pdf

"New Books on Shakespeare and Film": review essay (6,000 words) on Shakespeare on Film, ed. Robert Shaughnessey, and Shakespeare: The Movie, eds. Richard Burt and Lynda Boose, in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 13 (2001): 235-241.

"Cataians 的爭論和 Cathay 的誤用 — 莎劇中關於'中國人'的注譯" trans. Zhang Qian, Xiju Yishu (Shanghai) 97 (May 2000): 32-41. [A different version of the study of "Cataian" in Shakespeare emphasizing Chinese translations and Chinese criticism.]

"Visible Cities: The Heterotopic Utopia of China in Early Modern European Writing," Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, 30 (Fall/Winter 1997): 105-134. [Special issue on "Space, Place, and Signs in Early Modern Studies," ed. Bernadette Andrea.]

Victor Segalen's "Éloge du jade" and "Trahison fidèle," from Stèles, translated with Christopher Bush, in The Yale Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry, ed. Mary Ann Caws (Yale UP, 2004), 86-88.

Review of Shashibiya: Staging Shakespeare in China (Hong Kong UP, 2004), by Li Ruru, Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 4 (Winter 2006), 462-64.

“Shakespeare and Translation,” in The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, Mark Thornton Burnett, Adam Hansen, Adrian Streete, and Ramona Wray, eds., Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming in 2008.

* EXHIBITION: "Shakespeare's China / 莎翁之中國: Views of the Middle Kingdom from Early Modern England," guest curator of an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., September 2009.

Occasional Papers

"Making Friends with the Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典: An Introduction." April 2007. <https://seguecommunity.middlebury.edu/index.php?&action=site&site=tbilling&section=11854&page=48886&story=150166&detail=150166>

Invited Lectures

* "Much Virtue in If, or Playing What You Will in As You Like It. Weston Playhouse Theatre Co., Teacher’s Workshop, keynote address, Weston, Vermont, March 2008.

* "Glossing Shakespeare in Chinese, or: Heteroglosses and How We Read," by invitation, Pomona College, January 2007.

* "Glossing Shakespeare in Chinese, or: Heteroglosses and How We Read," by invitation, Queen's University Belfast, October 2006.

* "The Great City of China: the 'Long Wall' in Early European Texts," by invitation, SUNY Buffalo, October 2005, for an international conference on The Roles and Representations of Walls in the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity sponsored by the departments of History and Asian Studies.

* "Squashing the Shard-Borne Beetle Crux," paper read as winner of the Annual Open Paper Contest of the Shakespeare Association of America, Annual Convention, Bermuda, March 2005.

* "Fausse French Enough: Shakespeare's French and the Texts of Henry V," Cornell University, October 2003, by invitation, for Making the Text, a conference on medieval and early modern texts sponsored by the Cornell Department of English.

* "Shakespeare and the Value of Difference," by invitation, Freeman Foundation Seminar, Salzburg, Austria, June 2001 (see Workshops below).

* "Caterwauling Cataians: Annotating Shakespeare's 'Heathen Chinee,'" by invitation, Renaissance Colloquium, Harvard University, December 2000.

* "The Most Womanly Woman: 2,000 Years of Representing Cleopatra," by invitation, Humanities Colloquium, Colgate University, April 1998.

* "Character-Building: Chen Kaige's King of the Children and the Cinematic Hieroglyph," by invitation, East Asia Program Faculty Research Group, Cornell University, 1995.

* "一個美國詩人眼中的臺灣女性文學" [An American Poet's Perspective on Taiwanese Women's Writing], by invitation, keynote address in Mandarin, National Younger Writers' Association Conference, Taipei, 1993.

Pre-Show Lectures

* "No Gentlemen in Verona (and a Bit with a Dog)," The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., November 2004: a pre-show lecture and discussion on the adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at The Folger Shakespeare Theatre, sponsored by the Washington chapter of the Middlebury College Alumni Association.

* "Margaret Edson's W;t and the Poetry of John Donne," The Brigg's Opera House, White River Junction, Vermont, April 2000: a Sunday afternoon pre-performance lecture on what you need to know about Donne and his poetry to make the most of Edson's play.

Conference Papers

MLA (Modern Language Association) Annual Convention, Chicago, December 2007
“Slubbering the Gloss and Other Crucial Pleasures,” Shakespeare Division Panel

Shakespeare, les français, les France, Université Paris (3) Diderot, Paris, June 2007:
"Editing Shakespeare’s French"

ISA (International Shakespeare Association) World Shakespeare Congress, Brisbane, Australia, June 2006: Seminar Co-chair with Zhang Chong for Shakespeare In/To Other Tongues

ACLA (American Comparative Lit. Assoc.) Annual Convention, Princeton University, April 2006:
"Where the Meanings, Are: Internal Difference and the Edited Shakespearean Text"

SAA (Shakespeare Assoc. of America) Annual Convention, Philadelphia, April 2006:
"Fausse French Enough: Shakespeare's French and the Texts of Henry V (revision)"

ACLA Convention, Penn State University, March 2005: Seminar Co-chair with Haun Saussy for Re-Orienting Empire: The Topos of Imperial Asia(s):
"The Glyphomantic Turn: Subversive Ideography and the Cinematic Hieroglyph"

[SAA Annual Convention, Bermuda, March 2005: see "Invited Lectures"]

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.) Annual Convention, Philadelphia, December 2004:
"Liang's Labours Lost: or, Glossing 'Shashi' in Chinese Translations"

SAA Annual Convention, New Orleans, April 2004:
"Fausse French Enough: Shakespeare's French and the Texts of Henry V"

ACLA Annual Convention, Ann Arbor, April 2004:
"Relocating Translation: On Gayatri Spivak's Death of a Discipline"

SAA Convention, Victoria B.C., April 2003.
Chair of Advanced Research Seminar: "Shakespeare in Asian Tongues."

ACLA Annual Convention, San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 2002:
"Mots cachés: Bilingual Reading and the Manuscripts of Victor Segalen's Stèles"

ACLA Annual Convention, Boulder, April 2001:
"Monumental Materiality: Victor Segalen's Stèle Nestorienne"

Cairo International Conference of Comparative Literature, Cairo University, November 2000:
"Monumental Materiality: Victor Segalen's Stèle Nestorienne"

MLA Annual Convention, Chicago, December 1999:
"Fansi-Maps"

AAS (Assoc. for Asian Studies) Annual Convention, Boston, March 1999:
"Presumptions of Perspective: European Figures in the Late Ming"

RSA (Renaissance Society of America), Los Angeles, March 1999:
"Fansi-Maps"

ACLA Annual Convention, Montreal, April 1999: Seminar Chair for Ideology and the East: The Division of East and West in Literary Transnationalism;
"Witnessing Cathay: How Benedict Goes Discovered China"

ACLA Annual Convention, Austin, March, 1998:
"The Nestorian Tableau: Jesuit Identity and the Illustration of China"

SAA Annual Convention, Cleveland, March, 1998:
"Cauterwauling Cataians and the Catachresis of Cathay: Glossing Shakespeare's 'Heathen Chinee'"

NYCAS (New York Coalition for Asian Studies) & CeMERS Joint Conference, Binghamton, October, 1997: "The Chinese Utopolis: Market-square, Microcosm"

AAS Annual Convention, Chicago, March 1997:
"The ABCs of Hieroglyphic Reading: from Athanasius Kircher to Stanley Kwan"

GEMCS (Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies), Panel Chair, 1996:
"The China Cabinet of Dr. Kircher"

Seminars, Workshops, Etc.

* NEH Summer Institute, "The Handwritten Worlds of Early Modern England," directed by Stephen May at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., June-July 2005. A six-week long collaborative, intensive study by specialists for specialists of Renaissance manuscripts centered around the collection at the Folger Library.

* Shakespeare in Asia: An International Conference (Stanford University), April 2004. Co-organizer and co-grantwriter, with Patricia Parker and Haun Saussy.

* U.S. and East Asia: A Search for Common Values, Freeman Foundation Seminar, June 1-June 6, 2001, Salzburg, Austria. By invitation, a seminar comprised of previous fellows of the Salzburg Seminar in different disciplines, all of whom work on some aspect of relations between "East" and "West," especially East Asia and the United States.

* Shakespeare Around the Globe, Salzburg Seminar (no. 374), February 23-March 1, 2000, Salzburg, Austria. A week-long conference/workshop on the adaptation, translation, and reception of Shakespeare in universities and theatres around the world, including participants from 37 countries.

* Appropriations, a workshop of invited participants on topics of textual and cultural translation around the "East" and "West," directed by Haun Saussy, Stanford University, May, 2000.

* "Race in the Renaissance Classroom," a workshop at the SAA Convention, Montreal, Canada, April 2000: participant.

* The Uses of Cartography, a workshop of the Atlantic History Seminar, Harvard University, April 1999: participant.

* First International Dunhuang Seminar on Art & Society, June-July 1998, Dunhuang, P.R.C. A month-long, intensive, inter-disciplinary seminar for faculty and graduate students on the ancient art, religion, and material culture of this "Silk Route" site, at the Thousand Buddha Caves (莫高窟) in the Gobi desert. Directed by Wu Hong and Ning Qiang.