About the Provost

Sean Keilen is the Interim Provost of Porter College, Chair of the Council of Provosts, and
Professor of Literature. From 2013 until 2020, he was the Provost of Porter College.
Provost Keilen studies the works of William Shakespeare and the history of literary criticism. At
UC Santa Cruz, he founded Shakespeare Workshop, a research center of The Humanities
Institute that focuses on community education and public programming—most notably through
long-standing partnerships with Santa Cruz Shakespeare and the New Swan Shakespeare
Center at UC Irvine. In 2019, he co-founded The Deep Read, an annual program in which
students, faculty, staff, alumni, and readers from across the globe explore one book addressing
the existential concerns of our species. Provost Keilen is a recipient of the Committee on
Teaching Excellence in Teaching Award and the Arts Division’s Arts Advocate Award, and his
research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center,
the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Huntington Library.