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Tony Perrello earned a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of South Carolina and has taught in Stan State’s English Department since 2005. Classroom teaching and mentoring students occupy the center of his professional life (he was named Outstanding Professor in the University in 2018). He publishes on a range of topics; for instance, he has discovered and translated a riddle buried in a medieval manuscript, identified an overlooked source for Shakespeare’s King Lear, explored the animal-human-cyborg continuum in Othello, and discussed the roots of modern consumer culture, the abjection of disposability, and the degradation of the global ocean in a study of Richard III. He has a keen interest in Early Modern Literature and its tendency to intersect with current politics, popular culture, and horror on film, television, and in video games, and he has co-authored essays with graduate students in these areas, including a book chapter on horror and tragedy in Jordan Peele’s Get Out, another on extinction and the Anthropocene as they relate to the short-lived animated series Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and another on ethical quandaries and ludonarrative dissonance in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Tony chaired the Graduate Council for one term and directed the graduate program in the English Department for seven years. He founded and directed the Valley Voices Visiting Writers Series, funding campus readings and exposing students to nationally recognized poets including Gary Soto, Juan Felipe Herrera, Sam Pereira, and Dixie Salazar. Twice, he brought to Stan State the annual CSU Shakespeare Symposium, a multi-day event featuring over 40 presenters in an array of moderated sessions. He lured this prestigious gathering from its usual venues among CSU campuses in southern California and directed the proceedings.
Research Interests
Shakespeare, the Renaissance, Early Modern Drama and Poetry, Medieval Literature, The Anglo-Saxons, Horror and Teratology, Film, the Graphic Novel
Courses Taught
Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Medieval Literature, Renaissance Literature, Dramatic Literature, History of the English Language, Poetry Writing, Approaches to Literary Study
“The name is Blacula!’: Identity and Palimpsest in William Marshall’s Vampire Diptych,” Studies in the Fantastic, special edition on Black Horror (forthcoming 2024)
“Monsters of the Deep: What Watery Dreams May Come in Shakespeare’s Richard III.” Water and Cognition in Early Modern English Literature. Edited by Steven Mentz and Nic Helms. The Environmental Humanities in Premodern Culture Series, Amsterdam University Press, 2024. 65-89
“Dido American Style: Teaching Rhetorical Tropes for Fun and Profit,” Journal of Marlowe Studies, Vol. 3: Teaching Marlowe (2023), 66-90.
“The Death of Paarthurnax: The ‘Good Temptation?’” Being Dragonborn: Critical Essays on the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Edited by Mike Piero and Marc Ouellette, MacFarland & Company, 2021. 202-220. (with Anne Engert)
“From Tragedy to Horror: Othello and Get Out.” Jordan Peele’s Get Out: Political Horror, edited by Dawn Keetley. The Ohio State University Press, 2020. 23-35. (With Jonathan Byron)
“Driven to Extinction, Again: Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and the Irresistible Apocalypse.” Apocalyptic Television: Serializing the End, edited by Michael Cornelius and Sherry Ginn. McFarland & Company, 2020. 86- 101. (With Anne Engert)
“The Jacobean Theater of Horror.” The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature, edited by Kevin Corstorphine and Laura Kremmel. Palgrave MacMillan, 2018. 127-139.
“Old Black Rams and Mortal Engines: Transhumanist Discourse in Othello.” Renaissance Papers, edited by Jim Pearce and Ward Risvold. Camden House, 2018. 65-73.
“Themes in Beowulf.” The Encyclopedia of General Themes in Literature, Volume I. Ed. Jennifer McClinton-Temple. Facts on File, 2011. 163-167.
“Themes in Romeo and Juliet.” The Encyclopedia of General Themes in Literature, Volume III. Ed. Jennifer McClinton-Temple. Facts on File, 2011. 959-963.
“A Parisian in Hollywood: Ocular Horror in the Films of Alexandre Aja.” American Horror Film: The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium. Ed. Steffen Hantke. University of Mississippi Press 2010. 15-34.
“Gary Soto’s Simple Plan.” Encyclopedia of Hispanic-American Literature. Ed. Luz Elena Ramirez. Facts on File, 2008. 315-316.
“Foweles in the frith.” Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry. Ed. Michelle M. Sauer. Facts on File, 2008. 192-193.
“Now goth sonne vnder wod.” Companion to Pre-1600 British Poetry. Ed. Michelle M. Sauer. Facts on File, 2008. 290-291.
“’This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings’: England’s Female Body Politic.” Images of the Body Politic. Ed. Giuseppe Cascione, Donato Mansueto, and Gabriel Guarino. Milano: Edizioni ennerre S.r.1, 2007. 99-113.
“An Undiscovered Riddle in Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MS 1828-1830.” English Language Notes, 3: 2 (December, 2005): 8-14.
“An Interview With Peter Hedges.” The Concho River Review, 18.2 (2004): 33-56.
“’These moors are changeable’: Using Film to Teach Racial Politics and Othello” Postscript, 20 (2003): 31-37.
"From Costiveness to Comic Relief: Purgation in The Alchemist." Postscript, 15 (1998): 74-81.
“Martin White’s Renaissance Drama In Action.” In-Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism. 10: 2 (2001). 279-283.
"Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane." The Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 199 (Victorian Women Poets). Ed. William Thesing. Gale Research, 1999. 100-105.
"The Cosmic Dance: A Review of Ann Dunn's Olde Women," Asheville Poetry Review, 4:1 (1997): 111-114.
"Anglo-Saxon Elements of the Gloucester Sub-Plot in King Lear." English Language Notes, 35:1 (September, 1997): 10-16.
Eugene Hollahan, Hopkins Against History, in Victorian Studies, 39:4 (Summer, 1996): 600-602.
“’Pierced Through the Ear’: Idea Pathogens in Othello.” Shakespeare Association of America, Jacksonville, FLA, (2022)
“’we are spirits of another sort’: Vestiges of the Medieval Faerie in Comic Book Adaptations of A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare Association of America (2021)
“Watery Nightmares on the Shakespearean Stage.” Shakespeare Association of America, Denver, CO (2020)
“Sustainability in the Anthropocene: Metaphors, Dinosaurs, and Drinking Straws.” Faculty Lecture Series,
FCETL, CSU Stanislaus (2018)
“Love Among the Cyborgs: Empathy and Entropy in Othello.” 22nd Annual Shakespeare Symposium, CSU
Stanislaus, Turlock, CA (2015)
Panel Organizer and Moderator, Genre II (Horror and Renaissance Drama). 21st Annual Shakespeare
Symposium, CSU Long Beach, Long Beach, CA (2014)
“Shakespeare’s Animals—and his Animal-like Humans.” 21st Annual Shakespeare Symposium, CSU Long Beach,
Long Beach, CA (2014)
"Othello: Fear at the Boundaries." Shakespeare Association of America, Boston, MA (2012)
“Lady Mary Wroth: from Private Grief to Public Poet.” Modesto branch of the National League of American
Pen Women, 2012
"The Shifting Fortunes of a Jest Economy: Falstaff and Prince Hal Caught in the Notion of Expenditure."
Shakespeare Association of America, Bellevue, WA (2011)
“The Shakespearean Slasher Genre.” 19th Annual Shakespeare Symposium, California State University,
Stanislaus, Turlock, CA (2011)
“Medieval Representations of the Crucifixion: Dream of the Rood.” Modesto branch of the National League of American Pen Women, 2011
Workshop for Teachers: 19th Annual Shakespeare Symposium, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock,
CA (2011)
“’Cædmon’s Hymn’ and the Medieval Lyric.” Modesto branch of the National League of American Pen Women,
2010
WASC Workshop: Teaching and Assessing the English Major Conference, Long Beach, CA (2009)
"Beowulf 2705: The Monstrous Body as Palimpsest." Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, San
Francisco, CA (2009)
Panel Moderator, Literary Explorations of Empire, Culture, and Resistance. Empire Conference, California
State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, CA (2008)
“Sustainability or Apocalypse? The Zombie Film’s Eco-Conscience.” Sixty-first Annual Meeting of the Rocky
Mountain Language Association, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (2007)
Session Chair, Horror Film I: Horror in Culture and the Environment. Rocky Mountain Modern Language
Association, Calgary, Alberta, Canada (2007)
Session Chair, Horror Film II: Horror, Terrorism, and Anxiety. Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada (2007)
“’There’s scarce a bush’: an Ecocritical Look at King Lear.” Thirty-fifth Annual meeting of the Shakespeare
Association of America, San Diego, CA (2007)
“England’s Female Body Politic.” Fifty-second Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, San
Francisco, CA (2006)
“Leave it to Cleaver: Dismembering the Nuclear Family in Contemporary Horror Films.” Sixtieth Annual Rocky
Mountain MLA Convention, Tucson, AZ (October 2006)
Session Chair, Horror Film. Sixtieth Annual Rocky Mountain MLA Convention, Tucson, AZ (2006)
Panel Moderator, Mass Media & Empire. Empire Conference, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock,
CA (2006)
“Filmic Techniques in Teaching Early Texts.” Twenty-fourth Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching,
Oxford, OH (2004)
Session Chair, Tributaries to the Stream of Time: Temporal Experience as Cultural Construct in British
Literature. South Central Modern Language Association, New Orleans, LA (2004)
“Lawyers, Canons, and Money: From Eternal Law to Temporality in Chaucer’s Man of Law’s Tale.” South
Central Modern Language Association, New Orleans, LA (2004)
“Grendel, Cain, and Geisel: Evil and the Principle of Loss in Christian Communities.” Philological Association of
the Carolinas, Charlotte, NC (2004)
“Shakespeare’s Slasher Film: The Strange Case of Hannibal.” Southwest Texas Popular Culture Association,
Albuquerque, NM (2003)
Session Chair, Realism and Revenge: Studies in Gascoigne and Dekker. Sixteenth Century Studies
Conference, San Antonio, TX (2002)
“Wolfram’s Cundrie.” South Central Modern Language Association, Austin, TX (2002)
“The Spanish Tragedy and the Rhetoric of Violence.” Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, San Antonio, TX
(2002)
Session Chair, Shakespeare and Film. Philological Association of the Carolinas, Asheville, NC (2002)
“’These Moors are changeable’: Using Film to Teach Racial Politics and Othello.” Philological Association of the
Carolinas, Asheville, NC (2002)
“Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf.” Beowulf in Our Time: Pedagogical Approaches. Kennesaw State University,
Kennesaw, GA (2001)
Session Chair, Reading the Family. Philological Association of the Carolinas, Charleston, SC (2001)
“Scopophilia in The Faerie Queene.” Philological Association of the Carolinas, Charleston, SC (2001)
“’Dwarf, fool, and eunuch, well met here we be’: Physical Difference and Self-Identity in Volpone.” Popular
Culture Association, New Orleans, LA (2000)
“An Undiscovered Riddle from an Eleventh-Century Manuscript” Convocation at Lenoir-Rhyne College,
Hickory, NC (2000)
“Moby Dick and Pascal’s Fearful Sphere.” Philological Association of the Carolinas, Florence, SC (2000)
Session Chair, My Other/My Self. Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Miami, FL (1999)
“Freakish Interludes” Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies, Miami, FL (1999)
"The Loathsome Lady of Wolfram's Parzival." South Atlantic MLA, Atlanta, GA (1997)
"From Costiveness to Comic Relief: Purgation in The Alchemist" Philological Association of the Carolinas,
Greenville, NC (1997)
"Edward the Martyr: Edmund the Villain in King Lear?" Southeastern Medieval Association, Charleston, SC
(1995)
Outstanding Professor, California State University, Stanislaus, 2018
CEGE Faculty Mentorship Commendation, 2017
President’s Honor Roll Faculty Award (Office of Service Learning), 2012
College of Humanities and Social Sciences Community Outreach and Service Award, 2007
Worsham-Berry Teaching Award (San Angelo, TX), 2004