Greenblatt, Stephen (1943– )

US literary historian. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, and soon emerged as the most brilliant proponent of a new school of literary historians-critics that uses an interdisciplinary approach to studying texts. This approach came to be known as the ‘new historicism’ because of its emphasis on interpreting literary texts by placing them in often complex historical contexts. Greenblatt also saw the study of texts as yielding insights into the conflicts that concern current society. Among his most highly regarded works is Shakespearean Negotiations (1988). In 1983 he was also one of the founders of Representations, a journal that advances the ‘new historicist’ approach to cultural criticism. Greenblatt was born in Newton, Massachusetts. He studied for both his BA and PhD at Yale University, spending two years on a Fulbright scholarship at Cambridge University, England.