Kent Cartwright's field of study is medieval and Renaissance literature, especially late medieval and sixteenth-century drama, Shakespeare, and sixteenth-century of literature.

Cartwright has been especially interested in questions of how and to what effect literature moves us, an interest that leads to questions as much formal as historical. His first book Shakespearean Tragedy and Its Double: The Rhythms of Audience Response [1991] explores the various devices and techniques, including those of “engagement” and “detachment,” employed by Shakespeare to elicit emotional and intellectual responses from audiences. Cartwright's second book, Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the Sixteenth Century (1999), studies the hundred years of drama before Shakespeare, analyzing the transformation of an allegorical, didactic, and religious drama at the beginning of the period into a theater at the end of the century criticized as emotional, fantasy-arousing, and even immoral. Since then, much of his work has been on the Arden Shakespeare (third series) edition of The Comedy of Errors (forthcoming in 2015). Along the way he also edited A Companion to Tudor Literature (2011), a collection of 31 original essays from an international group of scholars that explore aspects of Tudor literature, especially regarding its relationship to medieval culture. Besides those major works, Cartwright has published essays ongoingly on Shakespeare and Tudor drama. His work on The Comedy of Errors has made him keenly interested in comedy, and Cartwright is now writing a book on Shakespeare’s comic oeuvre, tentatively entitled Shakespeare and the Comedy of Re-enchantment. Of late, his interests have also turned to large disciplinary questions about the social and personal value of reading literature. Besides teaching at Maryland, Cartwright has enjoyed short-term visiting professorships at the University of Szeged (Hungary) and the University of Florence (Italy), and in 2013-14 Visiting Research at the University of Venice. Besides those academic activities, Cartwright's career has also involved administrative and leadership work. He served as chair of the University of Maryland Senate, chair of the Department of English (2007-12), and trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America. In calendar 2015, Cartwright will be president of the nation-wide Association of Departments of English.