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Originally published in 1990, this book brought a new rigor and subtlety to the interpretation of film adaptations of Shakespeare. Drawing on traditional literary analysis, psychoanalysis, and current film theory about gender and subjectivity, the author combines close readings of seven films with historical and biographical studies of the directors who made them. Offering substantial readings of Jean-Luc Godard’s controversial deconstructed King Lear and of Liz White’s independent African-American Othello, Donaldson also applies his provocative and contemporary point of view to more familiar films. He reads Olivier’s Henry V in relation to its treatment of sexual difference; Olivier’s Hamlet in part as an expression of the director’s childhood sexual trauma; Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood as an allegory of the relationship between Western and Japanese cinema; and Zeffirelli’s immensely popular Romeo and Juliet in the light of its powerful homoerotic subtext. With striking perspectives on Shakespeare, on the movies as an expressive medium, and on the complex processes of cultural change, this is timeless useful reading for teachers and students of film and literature.
Machiavelli and Mystery of State studies the intersection of sacred and secular conceptions of kingship in the Renaissance by documenting in detail six instances of the attempt to connect Machiavelli's thought to an ancient and secret tradition of political counsel, the arcana imperii or mysteries of state. This book illuminates an important and neglected dimension of Machiavelli's powerful influence on Renaissance political discourse.
Genetics of Complex Disease is a concise text for final year undergraduate and first year graduate students. Healthcare professionals and other biomedical scientists trying to come to grips with the impact of new genetics research will also find the book useful. After explaining genetic variation and defining complex diseases, the text shows how and why complex diseases are investigated. The focus then changes to areas where there is strong evidence for the genes/alleles involved. Important ethical consequences are also covered, as are the methods used to generate new genetic data.
In 2002, for the second volume of this journal, Ian Lancashire reflected on the state of computing in Shakespeare. The decade since his review has seen dramatic change in the web of ‘digital Shakespeares’. This issue’s special section on Digital Shakespeares reflects on these developments and achievements, highlights current research in the field, and speculates on future directions.
Shakespeare education is being reimagined around the world. This book delves into the important role of collaborative projects in this extraordinary transformation. Over twenty innovative Shakespeare partnerships from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, Europe and South America are critically explored by their leaders and participants. –Structured into thematic sections covering engagement with schools, universities, the public, the digital and performance, the chapters offer vivid insights into what it means to teach, learn and experience Shakespeare in collaboration with others. Diversity, equality, identity, incarceration, disability, community and culture are key factors in these initiatives, which together reveal how complex and humane Shakespeare education can be. Whether you are interested in practice or theory, this collection showcases an abundance of rich, inspiring and informative perspectives on Shakespeare education in our contemporary world.
Film adaptations of Shakespeare's plays are increasingly popular and now figure prominently in the study of his work and its reception. This lively Companion is a collection of critical and historical essays on the films adapted from, and inspired by, Shakespeare's plays. An international team of leading scholars discuss Shakespearean films from a variety of perspectives: as works of art in their own right; as products of the international movie industry; in terms of cinematic and theatrical genres; and as the work of particular directors from Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles to Franco Zeffirelli and Kenneth Branagh. They also consider specific issues such as the portrayal of Shakespeare's women and the supernatural. The emphasis is on feature films for cinema, rather than television, with strong coverage of Hamlet, Richard III, Macbeth, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet. A guide to further reading and a useful filmography are also provided.
Digital Shakespeares from the Global South re-directs current conversations on digital appropriations of Shakespeare away from its Anglo-American bias. The individual essays examine digital Shakespeares from South Africa, India, and Latin America, addressing questions of accessibility and the digital divide. This book will be of interest to students and academics working on Shakespeare, adaptation studies, digital humanities, and media studies. Included in this volume, the chapter on “Finding and Accessing Shakespeare Scholarship in the Global South: Digital Research and Bibliography” by Heidi Craig and Laura Estill is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
The theater of early modern England was a disastrous affair. The scant record of its performance demonstrates as much, for what we tend to remember today of the Shakespearean stage and its history are landmark moments of dissolution: the burning down of the Globe, the forced closure of playhouses during outbreaks of the plague, and the abolition of the theater by its Cromwellian opponents. Persecution, Plague, and Fire is a study of these catastrophes and the theory of performance they convey. Ellen MacKay argues that the various disasters that afflicted the English theater during its golden age were no accident but the promised end of a practice built on disappearance and erasure—a kind of fatal performance that left nothing behind but its self-effacing poetics. Bringing together dramatic theory, performance studies, and theatrical, religious, and cultural history, MacKay reveals the period’s radical take on the history and the future of the stage to show just how critical the relation was between early modern English theater and its public.
"Larvatus prodeo," announced René Descartes at the beginning of the seventeenth century: "I come forward, masked." Deliberately disguising or silencing their most intimate thoughts and emotions, many early modern Europeans besides Descartes-princes, courtiers, aristocrats and commoners alike-chose to practice the shadowy art of dissimulation. For men and women who could not risk revealing their inner lives to those around them, this art of incommunicativity was crucial, both personally and politically. Many writers and intellectuals sought to explain, expose, justify, or condemn the emergence of this new culture of secrecy, and from Naples to the Netherlands controversy swirled for two cent...
This volume, examining the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays are designed for hearers as well as spectators, has been prompted by recent explorations of the auditory dimension of early modern drama by such scholars as Andrew Gurr, Bruce Smith, and James Hirsh. To look at the dynamics of hearing in Shakespeare’s plays involves a paradigm shift that changes how we understand virtually everything about them, from the architecture of the buildings, to playing spaces, to blocking, and to larger interpretative issues, including our understanding of character based on players’ responses to what they hear, mishear, or refuse to hear. Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stageand Screen...