English Department Faculty Member Receives Prestigious Folger Fellowship

Phebe Jensen, a faculty member in Utah State University’s Department of English, has been awarded a short-term fellowship to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The fellowship assists Jensen with her work on her book “Religion and Revelry in Shakespeare’s Festive World.” She will be in Washington, D.C. and at the library throughout July 2006.

Jensen was chosen from a very competitive and attractive pool of applicants, said Folger director Gail Kern Paster. Jensen’s project was judged to have exceptional merit that draws importantly on the Folger collections, Paster continued.

 

In her fellowship application Jensen said her primary objective is to consult the Folger’s manuscript collections.

 

“My first goal at the Folger, then, would be to search the manuscript collection for evidence to supplement what I have found in the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the Public Records Office and other archives,” Jensen said in her fellowship application. “My second research objective would be to use the Folger collections to facilitate — and accelerate — the project in its final stages: to check, and in some instances to gather, primary sources, and to check and consult secondary sources.”

 

The Folger Shakespeare Library, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., is a world-class research center on Shakespeare and the early modern age in the West. It is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare materials and other major collections of rare Renaissance books, manuscripts and works of art.

 

The Folger opened in 1932 as a gift to the American nation from Henry Clay Folger and his wife, Emily Jordan Folger. It is administered by the trustees of Amherst College, Henry Folger’s alma mater.

 

For more information on the project, contact Jensen at (435) 797-1406.