Melanie Simoes Santos

Melanie Simoes Santos is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of New Brunswick. Her research focuses on medieval and early modern literature, with a particular emphasis on theories of embodiment, histories of white femininity, and intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class. She holds a PhD and is located in Carleton Hall 319, Fredericton.

Her current book project, Becoming Otherwise: Virginity’s Historical Futures in Early Modern English Literature, examines how post-Dissolution of nunneries, the hymen became central to new communal and kinship structures beyond traditional marriage. This project employs queer theory, feminist new materialism, and critical race theory.

Dr. Simoes Santos has published in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing (2023), analyzing Margaret Cavendish’s plays and their gendered formal fragmentation. She is active in scholarly associations including the Shakespeare Association of America and the Renaissance Society of America, presenting at MLA conventions.

As part of the Graduate Academic Unit, she supervises graduate students exploring early modern literature’s negotiation of gender, sexuality, and race. No grants or awards are listed in the provided information.