Dyani Johns Taff

Dyani Johns Taff is an Assistant Professor of English at Colby College, specializing in early modern literature, gender studies, maritime humanities, environmental justice, and premodern critical race studies. Her work critically examines the intersections of power, environment, and identity in 16th–17th-century texts, with ongoing projects exploring gendered seascapes and maritime monsters in political discourse.

Research Focus: Taff's scholarship centers on ecocritical and feminist analyses of early modern literature. Her research interests include:

• Maritime metaphors in political authority and resistance
• Environmental justice in premodern contexts
• Race, gender, and monstrosity in seafaring narratives
• Queer ecologies and nonhuman collaborations

Publications: Her articles demonstrate a consistent focus on water-based ecocriticism, gender politics, and archival recovery—spanning poets like Hester Pulter, dramatists like Shakespeare, and novelists like Aphra Behn. Recurring themes include protest literature, slow violence, and the subversion of patriarchal structures through environmental imagery.

Awards and Honors:

• Best Article Award (2023) from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender
• Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship (2021)
• Andrew W. Mellon Research-Teaching Fellowship (2014)
• UC Davis Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award (2014)

Teaching and Mentorship: At Colby College, Taff teaches courses such as Literature and Environment, Staging Pirates and Captives, and Shakespeare and Injustice. She employs collaborative pedagogies to engage diverse learners in critical analyses of historical inequities.