Dr Maria Shmygol
Dr Maria Shmygol
Member, MEMOs

Maria Shmygol is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Moore Institute (National University of Ireland, Galway), where she is working on a project about non-European geographies and English drama, from c.1570 to 1660. Maria’s research interests include early modern drama, theatricality, travel writing, textual editing, and book history. She is Assistant Editor on the Oxford University Press Complete Works of John Marston (gen. eds. Martin Butler and Matthew Steggle), and has a forthcoming edition of William Percy’s The Aphrodysial (1602), prepared for the Malone Society. In collaboration with Lukas Erne, she is translator and editor of a seventeenth-century German play entitled Tito Andronico for Arden Shakespeare (2022) and has recently published an article on mock sea-fights in Jacobean London. Maria is a Trustee and Director of the British Shakespeare Association. She has held postdocs at the Universities of Geneva and Leeds, and fellowships at the Library of Congress and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her previous research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK), the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Société Académique de Genève, and the Schmidheiny Foundation. At MEMOS, Maria curates the ‘Projects’ page. She tweets @MariaShmygol


Antonio de Sosa (c. 1538-1587) and the Topographia of Algiers
Antonio de Sosa (c. 1538-1587) and the Topographia of Algiers
Antonio de Sosa's 'Topographia of Algiers' offers a captivating glimpse into his captivity in Algiers and its rich history.
23 October 2023
Travelling English Players and the Costuming of Moor Characters
Travelling English Players and the Costuming of Moor Characters
The presentation of character types and their racial identities in the export of dramatic material and staging practices from London to northern Europe.
23 May 2022
A Gift Fit for a Sultan: Thomas Dallam’s Clockwork Organ
A Gift Fit for a Sultan: Thomas Dallam’s Clockwork Organ
Dallam’s journal documents the travels, trials, and fortunes of the extraordinary clockwork organ sent by Elizabeth and the Levant Company
24 January 2022
A Representation of Algiers in Early Modern London
A Representation of Algiers in Early Modern London
The staged presence of the 1613 representation of Algiers offered spectators a glimpse into a fictional representation of the Mediterranean world.
12 December 2021
The 1725 Edition of Sir John Mandeville’s Travels and the Quest for Textual Authority
The 1725 Edition of Sir John Mandeville’s Travels and the Quest for Textual Authority
So what exactly did the 1725 edition do differently? Did it offer a more ‘correct’ version of Mandeville to readers?
4 October 2021
Public Performances of Blackness: The ‘King of Moors’ Pageant in the 1616 Lord Mayor’s Show
Public Performances of Blackness: The ‘King of Moors’ Pageant in the 1616 Lord Mayor’s Show
The 1616 ‘King of Moors’ pageant is but one example of a much larger body of pageant devices that staged racial difference publicly on the streets of London
24 May 2021
A Tale of Two Mandevilles: The Travels in Print, 1496-1625
A Tale of Two Mandevilles: The Travels in Print, 1496-1625
These different approaches to presenting Mandeville in print highlight editorial anxiety about the textual authority of the narrative
28 September 2020