Valerie Forman’s research and teaching interests lie in the literature and culture of 16th- and 17th-century England and Europe, the early modern Caribbean, early modern drama, early modern women writers, early modern economic history and political theory, and Marxist theory. She received a Ph.D. in literature from U.C. Santa Cruz, specializing in Renaissance and 17th-century English literature and culture and 16th-century French literature. Before coming to Gallatin, Forman taught in the Department of English at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her first book Tragicomic Redemptions: Global Economics and the Early Modern English Stage (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) explores the relationship between innovations in the theatre and new economic practices necessary to the beginnings of global trade, including that among England, the East Indies, and the Ottoman Empire. Her second book project, which turns to trade and cultural relations in the Caribbean, is entitled “Developing New Worlds: Property, Freedom, and the Economics of Representation in Early Modern England and the Caribbean.” She teaches courses on theatre and politics, labor and global markets, and the rise of globalization in the early modern period.
