Jessica Beckman is an Assistant Professor of English specializing in early modern poetics and material culture. Her book The Kinetic Text (Penn Press, 2026) challenges the arbitrary division of literary studies from book history by illuminating how writers from the sixteenth century onward harness the natural dynamism of reading to produce poetic effects. Her next project, entitled Unstable Character in the English Renaissance, explores the nature of literary character before the rise of narrative realism. She teaches courses on literary history, early modern drama and poetry including Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, and the history of the book from William Shakespeare  to Gertrude Stein.

Beckman holds a PhD in English Literature from Stanford University, an MA in English from Georgetown University, and a BA in English and Art History from The George Washington University. For the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a Barbara Thom Postdoctoral Fellow at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in English Literary History (ELH), Renaissance Drama, Spenser Studies, The Spenser Review, and Exemplaria. Her research has been supported by short-term fellowships from the Huntington Library and the Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA), among other institutions. Before joining the faculty at Dartmouth, she taught at Smith College, where she was  honored for her work with students by the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and at Stanford University, where she received the School of Humanities and Sciences' Centennial Teaching Award.