Dr. Britton researches and teaches early modern English literature (especially works by William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser), with a focus on the history of race, critical race studies, Protestant theology, and the history of emotion.

He is the author of Becoming Christian: Race, Reformation, and Early Modern English Romance, co-editor with Melissa Walter of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies, and co-editor with Kimberly Anne Coles of “Spenser and Race,” a special issue of Spenser Studies.  He is currently working on two research projects: a monograph, “Shakespeare and Pity: A Literary History of Race and Feeling,” and a new critical edition of Shakespeare’s Othello.

“‘Thrice fairer than myself’: Reading Desire and the Ends of Whiteness in Venus and Adonis.” The Oxford Handbook on Shakespeare and Race. Ed. Patricia Akhimie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. 71-85.

“Teaching Spenser’s Darkness: Race, Allegory, and the Making of Meaning in The Faerie Queene.” Teaching Race in the Renaissance. Ed. Matthieu Chapman and Anna Wainwright. Tempe: Arizona Center of Medieval and Renaissance Studies Press, 2023. 67-85.

“Red Blood on White Saints: Affective Piety, Racial Violence, and Measure for Measure.” White People in Shakespeare. Ed. Arthur L. Little Jr. London: Bloomsbury, 2022. 65-76.

with Orly Buchbinder, Eleanor Abrams, Julia G. Bryce, Leslie J. Couse, Jill McGaughy, and Barry Rock. “The Research and Engagement Academy: A Model for STEM Faculty Development.” Handbook of STEM Faculty Development. Ed. Sandra M. Linder, Cindy Lee, Shannon S. Stefl, and Karen Heigh. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2022. 279-89.

“Definitions of Race: Word Usage, Meaning, and Concept.” The Cultural History of Race. Volume 4 (1550-1760). Ed. Nicholas Hudson. Oxford: Bloomsbury, 2021. 19-32.

“Flesh and Blood: Race and Religion in The Merchant of Venice.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race. Ed. Ayanna Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 108-22.

“Cottage,” part of “Vitalizing the September Woodcut of ‘The Shepheardes Calender.’” Spenser Review 50.3.3 (Fall 2020).

“Beyond the Pale,” co-authored with Kimberly Anne Coles. Spenser Review 50.1.5 (Winter 2020).

“Ain’t She a Shakespearean: Truth, Giovanni, and Shakespeare.” Early Modern Black Diaspora Studies. Ed. Miles Grier, Nicholas Jones, and Cassandra Smith. New York: Palgrave, 2018. 223-28.

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2012-2013