Benjamin Miele

I am a doctoral Candidate in English literature researching early modern English literature and culture. My interests coalesce around Shakespeare, Ovid, the history of reading, book history, and intelligence studies. I am specifically interested in the overlap of reading and surveillance practices in early modern England, when the advent of print and affordable paper fostered  both decentralized, independent reading habits among general readers, who started to consume texts visually, reading quietly, or secretly, and the development of the English state surveillance apparatus, which relied heavily on secret reading. My dissertation examines how early modern England's imaginative works of drama, poetry, and prose explored the instrumentality of the spy trope and questioned the power of covert modes of human perception to access the truth.

I am also interested in understanding how past responses to surveillance can inform our own methods of responding to unprecedented technological innovation and a concomitant proliferation of surveillance tactics. Just as early modern England dealt with the new technology that was the printing press, which enabled government surveillance, our age must respond to innovation in the realm of digital technology and the subsequent use of that technology by governments, corporations, and individuals for spying. By studying past efforts to register the effect surveillance has on culture, I hope to better understand how surveillance warps the ways we communicate, interpret, and think. 

I also greatly enjoy teaching Interpretation of Literature and Honors Interpretation of Literature at Iowa. I serve as a Program Associate, or mentor to first-year TAs, for the Interpretation of Literature Program, and recently won an Outstanding TA Award.