Earl Showerman: Oxfordian of the Year

Earl Showerman, M.D., longtime scholar, teacher, and leader in the Shakespeare authorship field (and SOF President, 2022–24), was honored on September 20, 2025, as Oxfordian of the Year (see here for a list of past honorees). The award was conferred by the SOF at the culmination of our Annual Conference in New Haven, Connecticut (at which he appeared by video link). A detailed report will be published in the Fall 2025 Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter.

Dr. Showerman has published many important articles focusing on Shakespeare’s apparent knowledge of ancient Greek drama, culminating this year in his landmark book, Shakespeare’s Greater Greek. A graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Medical School, and an emergency room physician for many years, he has also applied his medical knowledge to study that of the author “Shakespeare.” He contributed a chapter on that subject to the anthology Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? (2013).

Cheryl Eagan-Donovan, 2019 Oxfordian of the Year, made the announcement on behalf of a committee composed of other past honorees, which selects each year’s recipient independently of the SOF President and Board of Trustees. The award recognizes contributions to the Oxfordian movement over many years, not limited to any specific recent achievement.

Cheryl hailed Earl as “a member of our community whose leadership and efforts … are extraordinary, an individual who has worked tirelessly to contribute to the wealth of scholarship … and someone who we all consider not just a respected colleague but a true friend.” Other committee members added their own enthusiastic praise.

Earl responded by thanking the committee and “the community of Oxfordians who have made the [SOF] what it is today — a vibrant, creative, strategic, and enduring educational organization. To be included among the ranks of our luminaries,” he said, mentioning past Oxfordians of the Year and invoking Homer, “is far beyond what I ever imagined possible at the outset of this decades-long Odyssey.”

Cheryl noted this year’s choice was easy given Earl’s stature as a scholar, his teaching, lecturing, and writing, and his outreach to people in the theatrical world. A longtime southern Oregon resident, dubbed by many “the Earl of Ashland,” he has sustained a productive engagement with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as well as Southern Oregon University and its Hannon Library.

Earl quoted a line from a poem by Cavafy (translated from the original Greek) which reflects his own journey: “When you set out for Ithaca, ask that your way be long, full of adventure, full of instruction.”

He continues to actively research, write, and lecture, including a talk, “Parallel Lives of Shakespeare’s Helena and Oxford’s Anne,” delivered at the same conference just hours before he accepted the award.