Excerpt: In 1575, Queen Elizabeth I stood behind Kenilworth Castle’s large bay windows to observe the entertainment underway in the courtyard. “It was a spectacular moment. Elizabeth was able to watch the show while also situated in a window above the courtyard for all to see,” recounted Allen Loomis, who recently earned his doctorate in English from Binghamton University. Ubiquitous today, transparent glass was then a brand-new innovation, restricted to the palatial estates of those adjacent to the monarchy. The queen’s appearance in front of a clear window kicked off a craze in “lantern houses,” window scenes in theater and more — a “domestic theatricality” that has become the focus of Loomis’ research.
Excerpt: This week’s blog post comes to us from guest contributor Allen Loomis, recipient of the 2023 Rakow Grant for Glass Research. Loomis is a PhD candidate in the English Department at Binghamton University. His research is concentrated on the relationship between public theater and the domestic sphere in England during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. His specific area of interest is the impact of window glass technology on this intersection. To support his research on the influence of material culture on theater, he has received grants from the Corning Museum of Glass and Harpur College at Binghamton University. Additionally, he teaches literature courses that focus on early modern works, such as Shakespeare, the Revenge Tragedy Tradition, and True Crime in Early Modern London.
Glass and Glass Houses in Shakespeare’s Lifetime, That Shakespeare Life with Cassidy Cash
May 2024
Excerpt: Glass is used over 80 times in Shakespeare’s works, including to talk about specific kinds of glass like pilot’s glass in Alls Well That Ends Well, and “the glasses of my sight” in Coriolanus. We can see from the surviving Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford Upon Avon that window glass existed, and there was even an old glass house in the Blackfriars where the Blackfriars theater was located, but how was all this glass made? What other products might have been made from glass, and what colors of glass were most popular? To find out the answers to these questions and explore the history of glass for Shakespeare’s lifetime, we are delighted to welcome Allen Loomis to the show today.
Investing in the future of the liberal arts
September 2023
Excerpt: For the first time, Harpur College of Arts and Sciences has awarded graduate- student support from the new Harpur Dean’s Graduate Investment Initiative, made possible thanks to Mitchell J. Lieberman ’80 and Susan G. Lieberman. The couple established the fund to enhance graduate education in Harpur at the student and programmatic levels. The support empowers Harpur to focus on immediate initiatives and those that will shape the future of the college. Dozens of graduate students received essential funding this past spring to advance their work. Fourteen of them have projects dedicated to the arts and received approximately $11,000 in total funding; other projects are focused on activities outside the arts, with 24 students each receiving $1,000. Here are just some of the recipients: Allen Loomis
Excerpt: The primary purpose of the Great Books Symposium Journal is to acknowledge and celebrate the exceptional analytical skills and critical research writing of students studying Great Books at Wilbur Wright, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. It is our hope that this journal inspires current and future students to take Great Books classes at Wright College and to submit their essays for future editions. This journal is also a response to the misguided notion that students from two-year colleges are less capable of understanding and writing proficiently about complex ideas put forth in great works. In reality, as our journal demonstrates, two-year students possess profound insight and are clearly capable of intellectual excitement and originality. Allen Loomis, Creator of the Online Journal, 2017