Position Title
Lecturer
ENL 3A: W 2-3 (in person)
Currently Teaching:
Biography:
Kenny Connally hails from Orange County, California, where he earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English from Chapman University. He began studying at UC Davis in 2012, earning his Ph.D. in English literature with an emphasis in classics and classical receptions in 2019. His dissertation, Questioning Reproduction in Seventeenth-Century English Literature, examines figurative language around various forms of reproduction (procreation, manuscript copying, coinage, etc.) in seventeenth-century literature, showing that key works by Shakespeare, Milton, Cavendish, and Dryden engage critically with a developing philosophy of reproduction. It argues that these authors drew on ancient Hellenistic philosophical texts such as Lucretius' De rerum natura to question early modern assumptions around gender and sexuality. Connally has been a lecturer in the English Department since 2019, teaching courses that reflect the variety of his research interests: on Shakespeare, Milton, philosophy and literature, horror fiction and tragedy, the reception of ancient Greek and Latin texts in English literature, and adaptations across media.
- Ph.D. in English with a designated emphasis in classics and classical receptions, UC Davis, 2019
- M.A. in English, Chapman University, 2012
- B.A. in English with a history minor, Chapman University, 2010
- 2018 Winter Quarter Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship, UC Davis English Department
- ENL 3: Introduction to Literature
- ENL 3A: Writers' Workshop
- ENL 10A: Literatures in English I: To 1700
- ENL 40: Introductory Topics in Literature (Topics: Philosophy and/as Literature; Shakespeare and the Classics; From Greek Tragedy to Modern Horror)
- ENL 41: Introductory Topics in Literature & Media (Topic: Frankenstein on Page and Screen)
- ENL 52: Pop Culture Shakespeare
- ENL 110A: Introduction to Literary Theory
- ENL 111: Topics in Medieval Literature (Topic: Medieval Adaptations)
- ENL 115: Topics in 16th- and 17th-Century Literature (Topic: Early Modern Philosophy and/as Literature)
- ENL 117: Shakespeare
- ENL 149: Topics in Literature (Topics: From Greek Tragedy to Modern Horror; Paradise Lost and the Classics)
- ENL 155A: 18th Century British Novel
- UWP 1: Introduction to Academic Literacies
- Early modern English literature; gender and sexuality; the early modern reception of ancient philosophy; horror fiction and film
- “Hedone in Eden: The Queerness of Pleasure in Paradise Lost.” Milton Quarterly 56 (2023): 127-36. https://doi.org/10.1111/milt.12426.
- “‘Quitting Nature’s Part’: The Reproductive Quest in Dryden’s Virgil.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture 45.2 (Fall 2019): 193-218. https://doi.org/10.1163/23526963-04502005.
- Podcast review: “That Shakespeare Life.” Early Modern Digital Humanities 6.2 (2023). https://doi.org/10.33137/rr.v46i2.42303.