Oliver Jakes

Thesis title: Theatrical Genres of the Credit Economy: Debt and Drama in Eighteenth-Century England

Supervisor: David Francis Taylor

Research interests: Theatre history and performance studies; new economic criticism; gender studies; politics and economics in the long eighteenth century

My research analyses the role of drama in mediating economic transition in the eighteenth century, with a particular focus on performances of debt. I cover work by George Lillo, David Garrick, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Elizabeth Inchbald and other eighteenth-century dramatists, as well as adaptations and revivals of plays by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. I am interested in how drama fits within and pushes the boundaries of new economic criticism. My work therefore examines both how narratives involving debtors and creditors were performed and received, and how debt became a framework for thinking through other key social issues, particularly gender.

I am also a Research Assistant on the project The Collected Letters of Hannah More, joint-funded by the University of Bristol, MHRA and the YMCA, where I am supporting research on Hannah More's letters to the renowned abolitionist William Wilberforce. The most recent stage of this project is led by Dr. Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull (University of Oxford, University of Bristol).

I am a firm believer in the importance of public engagement. At the University of Cambridge I helped to edit Joanna Baillie's comedy, The Tryal (1798), for a rehearsed reading at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds. This theatrical revival project was organised by the University of Essex and funded by the British Association for Romantic Studies. I also gave a lecturer titled 'Performing Gender: Cross-dressing and Androgyny on the Eighteenth Century Stage' for the 2025-2026 'Insight into Humanities Talks' series at Balliol College, University of Oxford. This series aims to engage secondary school students with the Humanities and to improve access at Oxford.

I completed my BA in History and English at St Hugh's College, University of Oxford (First Class), and my MPhil in English at Clare College, University of Cambridge (Distinction). I am the current recipient of the Leon-E and Iris L Beghian Graduate Scholarship at Magdalen College.