by Brian Volck | Jul 10, 2025 | Nativism, Shakespeare, Thomas More
The Book of Thomas More, a play originally written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle in the 1590s and heavily revised by at least three other hands, was likely never performed before the twentieth century. The existing handwritten manuscript, now held at the British...
by Brian Volck | Aug 13, 2024 | Over the Rhine, poetry, words
Jill and I are looking forward to some overdue travel, starting with the Nowhere Else Festival this Labor Day weekend. Thanks to Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine—the husband-and-wife indie-folk duo on whose farm the festival blossoms—the music,...
by Brian Volck | Jul 18, 2024 | words
In unveiling my updated website, I can’t help but notice what’s concealed in attempting to reveal. My new headshots, taken last fall by the amazing Michael Wilson (click his name on my links page to see his website), show me cleanshaven with a full head of dark hair....
by Brian Volck | Aug 22, 2022 | Theory, Uncategorized
I don’t like literary theorists that take their thoughts more seriously than the integrity of the work under examination. Making a text dance to whatever tune you impose belongs among the Forbidden Curses. I remember some time ago telling Robert Coles I was...
by Brian Volck | Jul 13, 2022 | amnesia, art, history
History is a messy business, an exercise in imposing order on contradictory information, a series of provisional efforts to select signal from noise, and is best understood, as Steven Shapin wrote about the sciences, “as if it was produced by people with bodies;...
