“The author is right to draw attention to the overlooked nature of Isocrates, and Isocrates’ influence on Elizabeth I is a novel and interesting subject.”
Rhetoric of the Middle Way in Isocrates, Queen Elizabeth I, and the Church of England, currently under contract with Bloomsbury Academic, explores the influence of Isocrates on Queen Elizabeth I, and the re-formation of the Church of England in 1558. The unique aspect of this project is its subject matter and the combination of three research methods I will use.
To date, no one has studied the influence of Isocrates on Queen Elizabeth I, her policies, and the Church of England. To explore these connections, my research will proceed in three steps. First I will conduct a rhetorical analysis of works from Isocrates (To Nicocles, etc.), Queen Elizabeth I (correspondence, policies, etc.), and formational documents from the Church of England (Thirty-Nine Articles, etc.). Second, I will collaborate with colleagues to analyze these same works and apply grounded theory, a model borrowed from the social sciences, to code and analyze data. Lastly, I will use Claude.ai to analyze these works. I will then compare findings from these methods and explore what we can learn and apply from the results.
"The book tackles a topic that would be very welcome in the research landscape in the field..."
- Peer Reviewer
"...the book will make an interesting contribution to studies on Elizabeth I and the Elizabethan period. I would very much be interested in reading a book that ties Elizabeth I’s education to her political role and the way she understood her role as a religious leader, by illuminating an as-yet overlooked aspect of her education which is her reception of Isocrates through Ascham."
- Peer Reviewer