Michael Witmore (born May 3, 1967) is a scholar of Shakespeare and rhetoric, a digital humanist, and former director of a library and cultural institution. He served as the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., from 2011 to June 2024, during which the Folger Shakespeare Library conceived and completed an $81.5 million, four-year renovation project. He currently consults on digital preservation and cultural accessibility.
Early life and career Michael Witmore graduated from Vassar College in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English.Selden, Richard. "Beyond Vassar: Honoring the Bard", Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly, February 2016. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. in rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1999 to 2008, he was an assistant professor and then an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University. From 2008 to 2011, he was a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.Witmore, Michael. "Curriculum Vitae", Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved on May 9, 2017."Dr. Michael Witmore", Staff Directory. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved on May 9, 2017.
Witmore's books include Culture of Accidents: Unexpected Knowledges in Early Modern England (2001), the co-winner of the 2003 Perkins Prize for the study of narrative literature;"The Barbara Perkins and George Perkins Prize: Past Prize Winners", International Society for the Study of Narrative, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Retrieved on May 10, 2017. Pretty Creatures: Children and Fiction in the English Renaissance (2007); Shakespearean Metaphysics (2008); and Landscapes of the Passing Strange: Reflections from Shakespeare (2010) with photographer Rosamond Purcell. He co-edited Childhood and Children's Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550–1800 (2006) and Shakespeare and Early Modern Religion (2015).
Digital humanities
A pioneer in the use of computers for digital analysis of the texts of William Shakespeare, Witmore launched and directed the Working Group for Digital Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and organized the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies."Michael Witmore, Contributor", Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on May 10, 2017.Ungerleider, Neal. "The Data-Mining’s The Thing: Shakespeare Takes Center Stage in the Digital Age", Fast Company, December 14, 2011. He also founded Wine Dark Sea, a blog on the nature of linguistic variation in Shakespeare's plays and early modern English text.
Witmore is interested in how the resources of computing, when applied to collections of digitized texts, can allow scholars to do intellectual and cultural history "at the level of the sentence.""Michael Witmore: Shakespeare from the Waist Down". Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), University of Maryland. He is known for proposing that "massive addressability" is a fundamental feature of texts."Latour, the Digital Humanities, and the Divided Kingdom of Knowledge", Project MUSE."Text: A Massively Addressable Object", Wine Dark Sea blog. December 31, 2010.
Witmore is currently working on a project with Vint Cerf (Google) called "Digital Vellum," which aims to preserve and transmit cultural materials in digital form centuries into the future. “ATLAS Colloquium: Michael Witmore on If, And, or But: Shakespeare’s Genres in Three Words.” September 24, 2024. Atlas Institute, University of Colorado Boulder.
Folger Shakespeare Library As the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Witmore developed a new strategic plan, which was accepted by the board in 2013. From 2020 to June 2024, the Folger building temporarily closed for a major renovation project, adding two new exhibition halls, extensive new gardens that incorporate two large entry ramps, and accessible visitor entrances below the existing building, in addition to other changes.McGlone, Peggy. "Folger Shakespeare Library plans underground expansion," Washington Post, April 11, 2019. The renovation project incorporated commissioned art, including a poem by Rita Dove engraved beside a garden path, a light and paper sculpture by Anke Neumann,"New Paper Sculpture at Folger Pays Homage to its 16th and 17th Century Book Collection," Fine Books & Collections, October 22, 2023. and an installation by Fred Wilson (artist).Kennicott, Philip. “The world’s largest Shakespeare collection finally has the home it deserves,” The Washington Post, June 21, 2024.Schuessler, Jennifer. “The Folger Library Wants to Reintroduce You to Shakespeare,” New York Times, June 21, 2024.Smith, David. “‘We’re going to find the next Shakespeare’: inside DC’s $80m library renovation,” The Guardian, June 22, 2024.
During Witmore's tenure, the Folger pursued multiple digital humanities (DH) projects, including Early Modern Manuscripts Online (EMMO), Shakespeare's World (a crowdsourced manuscripts project), Shakespeare Documented,Richter, Barbara Basbanes. "90 Shakespeare Documents Recognized on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register" Fine Books & Collections. January 2018. (Note that this discusses the UNESCO register in the headline but also describes the Shakespeare Documented project.) A Digital Anthology of Early Modern English Drama (EMED),Ferington, Esther. "Shining a Light on the Other Playwrights of Shakespeare's Day," Shakespeare & Beyond blog, June 8, 2018. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved March 16, 2023. and apps with a social reading platform for seven of Shakespeare's most-known plays.Katherine Rowe, Professor of English, Bryn Mawr College. "The Luminary Folger Shakespeare" Shaksper, the Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference. May 24, 2013. Retrieved March 3, 2023. In addition, the Folger editions of Shakespeare's plays and poems were made available in free, searchable form — originally as the Folger Digital Texts, launched in 2012, and then, in 2020, as The Folger Shakespeare."Macbeth Goes Digital: Folger Shakespeare Library Launches Digital Texts." Stony Brook University Libraries. Retrieved March 16, 2023."Annual Report," July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021. Folger Shakespeare Library]].
Witmore led the Folger in celebrating three major Shakespeare anniversaries: the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 2014, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, and the 400th anniversary of the First Folio of Shakespeare in 2023. In preparation for the first two anniversaries, the library updated and renovated its Great Hall exhibition space"Annual Report", July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013. Folger Shakespeare Library. and completed a number of upgrades to its Elizabethan Theatre."Annual Report," July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. The Folger marked the 2014 anniversary of Shakespeare's birth with Shakespeare's the Thing, an exhibition of Shakespeare-related items curated by Folger staff members. For the 2016 anniversary of his death, the Folger organized a traveling national tour, First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare, which displayed First Folios from the Folger collection in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, with public programs and events at the host sites."Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library", NEA Art Works podcast, April 29, 2016, National Endowment for the Arts. Transcript and audio. Other aspects of the 2016 anniversary celebration included a C-SPAN2 Book TV live broadcast on the anniversary date,"400th Anniversary of William Shakespeare's Death" April 23, 2016, C-SPAN. a Los Angeles exhibition on America's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West,Babayan, Siran. "America's Shakespeare: The Bard Goes West," LA Weekly. launching a continuing Theater Partnership Program nationwide, commissioning the vocal work "The Isle" (based on The Tempest) by Caroline Shaw,French, Esther. "Hearing island voices: Roomful of Teeth's Caroline Shaw talks Shakespeare and 'The Tempest', Shakespeare & Beyond blog, November 13, 2016. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved March 3, 2023. premiering District Merchants, a variation of The Merchant of Venice set in Washington, D.C., after the Civil War,Blair, Elizabeth. "This Shakespeare Reconstruction Sets Merchant in Post-Civil War D.C.", NPR, June 30, 2016. and piloting the CrossTalk DC community discussion program on race and religion as part of the NEH’s Humanities in the Public Square program."Trinity Partners with Folger Shakespeare Library for "CrossTalk: D.C. Reflects on Identity and Difference". Trinity. Press release, September 28, 2016. In 2023, the Folger produced Searching for Shakespeare, a festival of events for the anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, in partnership with the District of Columbia Public Library system, including the premiere of the play Our Verse in Time to Come by Malik Work and Karen Ann Daniels, in collaboration with Devin E. Haqq, the Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture, a citywide scavenger hunt, workshops and family activities, and the exhibition of a Folger First Folio at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library."Searching for Shakespeare," Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved March 16, 2023.
Under Witmore, the Folger also produced many other projects, among them Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible, an NEH-funded 2011–13 national touring panel exhibition on the 400th anniversary of the 1611 King James Bible, with the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford; the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series, for which Witmore recorded introductions to more than 200 episodes;Shakespeare Unlimited podcast; linked audio and transcripts to 200-plus episodes include Witmore introductions. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved on March 16, 2023. the general-audience Shakespeare & Beyond blog; the Folger Shakespeare Audio Editions, studio recordings of seven Shakespeare plays by the Folger Theatre; and what is believed to be the first professional performance in centuries of William Davenant's adaptation of Macbeth from about 1664."Annual Report," July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019. Folger Shakespeare Library. Other Folger projects included Experiencing Shakespeare, an electronic field trip used by hundreds of thousands of students and produced by Folger Education, which won two regional Emmys;"APT Wins Emmy Awards". Alabama Public Television. Press release, June 10, 2013. curricula on Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello for grades 9, 10, and 12 in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS);"Annual Report," July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2019. Folger Shakespeare Library. and Black Shakespeare, an award-winning curriculum for Reconstruction, an online education platform. The Folger also organized "Before 'Farm to Table,'" a four-year collaborative research project funded by the Mellon Foundation that included scholars in multiple disciplines, performers, chefs, and others, on early modern food and foodways and their social and international impact, including a commissioned theatrical work, Confection.Wilson, B.L. "Food in the Era of Shakespeare," GW Today, September 23, 2019."Exploring Third Rail Projects' Confection at the Folger Shakespeare Library," September 26, 2019. Folger Shakespeare Library. YouTube. Retrieved March 21, 2023. Witmore also sought out new ways to combine science and the humanities, including DNA research on the dust in centuries-old books."In the News: In Rare Books, Centuries-Old Proteins Can Reveal the Past," Shakespeare & Beyond blog, January 4, 2019. Folger Shakespeare Library. Retrieved March 16, 2023.