I joined the Richard III Society in 2014 after making a Ricardian bestie during the excitement around the discovery of his remains in Leicester. Prior to this, I had been revisiting Shakespeare with the release of National Theatre and Globe stage productions in the cinema. Having only seen a handful of film adaptations and one live performance before, I was happily regressing into my teenaged Bardolatry. At this stage, no one could convince me that Shakespeare was a ‘Tudor propagandist’, it’s a concept that simply doesn’t correspond with his works. It is, however a long-held Ricardian belief. I became preoccupied with disrupting the idea that Shakespeare demonised disability and Richard III. So it was Shakespeare who actually guided me toward researching Richard III (I got to keep the bestie too).
My doctoral research has been wide-ranging and intensive. I question the idea of ‘Tudor propaganda’ and suggest it has contributed to a lack of cultural studies on Richard III. I have found an incredible range of representations of Richard III in my research that need examining. My thesis will explore the enduring impact of Shakespeare’s Tragedy on Richard III’s historical reputation. I’ve published two manuscripts on Richard III and representations of disability, permissible spaces of hatred, and I am developed a manuscript on Richard III’s place within the radical transformations in English history writing in the sixteenth century alongside my doctoral research. The afterlife of Richard III still has much to teach us about historiography and historical representation.