Description: Marking the 400th anniversary of his death, leading Shakespeareans reflect back on key developments in criticism and look forward to new areas of study
Brief description: Dympna Callaghan is William L. Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the Department of English at Syracuse University. She has published widely on the playwrights and poets of the English Renaissance and was President of the Shakespeare Association of America in 2012-13. Callaghan has held fellowships at the Folger, Huntington and Newberry Libraries, at the Getty Research Centre in Los Angeles, and, most recently, at the Bogliasco Center for Arts and Humanities in Liguria, Italy.
Review Quotes: "Shakespeare in Our Time is an invaluable source in presenting illuminating and intriguing approaches to Shakespeare's plays. In its twenty articles it is ultimately a challenging conversation among distinguished scholars of the early modern period. The chapters raise interesting and innovative concerns, such as American appropriation, social context, Shakespeare's sources, and text, and cover a wide range of critical approaches from feminism to ecocriticism, from sexuality to morality, from media to race and class systems, and from historicism to globalization. Each section includes three or four articles from various critical approaches that both broaden the reader's understanding and approach the matter with new perspectives ... Shakespeare in Our Time enriches and broadens the understanding of students and instructors with clear guidance of Shakespeare studies. All chapters, but particularly chapters on teaching, editing, and biography, are informative and beneficial for pedagogical interests. In each chapter, authors present interesting, innovative, and challenging approaches to help students understand their world by learning from Shakespeare's language, characters, and messages. The book provides professors, students, and readers with eye-opening analyses that will help extend their horizons." - Sixteenth Century Journal