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In this book, Elisabeth H. Kinsley weaves the stories of racially and ethnically distinct Shakespeare theatre scenes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Manhattan into a single cultural history, revealing how these communities interacted with one another and how their work influenced ideas about race and belonging in the United States during a time of unprecedented immigration. As Progressive Era reformers touted the works of Shakespeare as an “antidote” to the linguistic and cultural mixing of American society, and some reformers attempted to use the Bard’s plays to “Americanize” immigrant groups on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, immigrants from across Europe appropria...
This book examines contemporary approaches to adaptation in theatre through seventeen international case studies. It explores company and directorial approaches to adaptation through analysis of the work of Kneehigh, Mabou Mines, Robert Le Page and Katie Mitchell. It then moves on to look at the transformation of the novel onto the stage in the work of Mitchell, and in The Red Badge of Courage, The Kite Runner, Anne Frank, and Fanny Hill. Next, it examines contemporary radical adaptations of Trojan Women and The Iliad. Finally, it looks at five different approaches to postmodern metatheatrical adaptation in early modern texts of Hamlet, The Changeling, and Faustus, as well as the work of the Neo-Futurists, and the mash-up Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella. Overall, this comprehensive study offers insights into key productions, ideas about approaches to adaptation, and current debates on fidelity, postmodernism and remediation.
George Floyd's death on May 25th 2020 marked a watershed in reactions to anti-Black racism in the United States and elsewhere. Intense demonstrations around the world followed. Within literary studies, the demonstrations accelerated the scrutiny of the literary curriculum, the need to diversify the curriculum, and the need to incorporate more Black writers. Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum is a major collection that aims to address these issues from a global perspective. An international team of leading scholars illustrate the necessity and advantages of reform from specific decolonial perspectives, with evidence-based arguments from classroom contexts, as well as establishing new critical agendas. The significance of Decolonizing the English Literary Curriculum lies in the complete overhaul it proposes for the study of English literature. It reconnects English studies, the humanities, and the modern, international university to issues of racial and social justice. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies in global contexts, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare’s work and his time. Contributions are solicited from scholars across the field and from both hemispheres of the globe who represent diverse career stages and linguistic traditions. Both new and ongoing trends are examined in comparative contexts, and emerging voices in different cultural contexts are featured alongside established scholarship. Each volume features a collection of articles that focus on a theme curated by a specialist Guest Editor, along with coverage of the current state of the field in other aspects. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual publication captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in global Shakespeare scholarship and performance practice worldwide.
'We that are true lovers run into strange capers.' Four centuries after its publication in the Folio, As You Like It's capacity to entertain and instruct remains evergreen. This edition provides a friendly yet authoritative introduction to the play, upholding it as a crowning expression of the Elizabethan Renaissance while underscoring its appeal to twenty-first century readers as Shakespeare's most intrepid exploration of gender, sexuality, and the environment. Its double-cross-dressed heroine dominates the plot (and their love interest Orlando) to conduct a masterclass in gender fluidity. The melancholic Jaques unmasks the fundamental theatricality of existence and questions humanity's pre...
This book is the first comprehensive account of global Shakespeare commemoration in the period between 1916 and 2016. Combining historical analysis with insights into current practice, Memorialising Shakespeare covers Shakespeare commemoration in China, Ukraine, Egypt, and France, as well as Great Britain and the United States. Chapter authors discuss a broad range of commemorative activities—from pageants, dance, dramatic performances, and sculpture, to conferences, exhibitions, and more private acts of engagement, such as reading and diary writing. Themes covered include Shakespeare’s role in the formation of cultural memory and national and global identities, as well as Shakespeare’s relationship to decolonisation and race. A significant feature of the book is the inclusion of chapters from organisers of recent Shakespeare commemoration events, reflecting on their own practice. Together, the chapters in Memorialising Shakespeare show what has been at stake when communities, identity groups, and institutions have come together to commemorate Shakespeare.
Reveals a rich cinematic history, discussing Hamlet films from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
Shakespeare, as well as the reading, translating, teaching, criticizing, performing, and adapting of Shakespeare, does not exist outside culture. Culture in its many varieties not only informs the Shakespearean corpus, productions, and scholarship, but is also reciprocally shaped by them. Culture never remains stable, but constantly evolves, travels, procreates, blends, and mutates; no less incessantly, the understanding and rewriting of Shakespeare fluctuates. The relations between Shakespeare and culture thus comprise a dynamic flux which calls for examination and reexamination. It is this rich and even labyrinthine network of meanings—intercultural, intertextual, and intergeneric—that this volume intends to explicate. The essays collected here, most of them first presented at the Fourth Conference of the National Taiwan University Shakespeare Forum held in Taipei in 2009, cover a wide range of topics—religion, philosophy, history, aesthetics, as well as politics—and thereby illustrate how fruitfully complex the topic of cultural interchange can be.
In the past two decades, Othello has tried out for the basketball team, Macbeth has taken over a fast food joint and King Lear has moved to an Iowa farm--Shakespeare is everywhere in popular culture. This collection of essays addresses the use of Shakespearean narratives, themes, imagery and characterizations in non-Shakespearian cinema. The essays explore how Shakespeare and his work are manipulated within the popular media and explore topics such as racism, jealousy, misogyny and nationality. The submissions concentrate on film and television programs that are adaptations of Shakespearean plays, including My Own Private Idaho, CSI-Miami, A Thousand Acres, Prospero's Books, O, 10 Things I Hate About You, Withnail and I, Get Over It, and The West Wing. Each chapter includes notes and a list of works cited. A full bibliography completes the work; it is divided into bibliographies and filmographies, general studies and essays, derivatives based on a single play, derivatives based on several, and derivatives based on Shakespeare as a character. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Shakespeare and Cultural Appropriation pushes back against two intertwined binaries: the idea that appropriation can only be either theft or gift, and the idea that cultural appropriation should be narrowly defined as an appropriative contest between a hegemonic and marginalized power. In doing so, the contributions to the collection provide tools for thinking about appropriation and cultural appropriation as spectrums constantly evolving and renegotiating between the poles of exploitation and appreciation. This collection argues that the concept of cultural appropriation is one of the most undertheorized yet evocative frameworks for Shakespeare appropriation studies to address the relations...