Shakespeare in the Age of Mass Incarceration

List of Contributors

Foreword by Ved Price

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why is Shakespeare in Prison Today?

Liz Fox & Gina Hausknecht

Past & Present

1.  Shakespeare’s “Working-House of Thought”: The Prison in Early Modern London

Matthew Ritger

2. Hope Needs to Be Loud: A Founding Member on Nearly Thirty Years of Shakespeare Behind Bars

Hal Cobb

3. Three Thousand Hours: Shakespeare and Awe in Prison

Sarah Higinbotham

Interventions

4. The Cultural Invasion of Shakespeare in Prison

dave rich

5. The Cultural Invasion of Shakespeare in Prison: Contexts and Futures

Jayme M. Yeo

6. Shakespeare at Auburn: Reflections on Teaching and Learning in the Prison Classroom

Julio C. Iglesias, Stephen K. Kim & Chester “Al” Wood

7. “Prisoners of our Actions”: Teaching Hamlet on Rikers Island

Brian Chalk

8. Playing Many Parts: The Challenges of Representing Incarcerated Shakespeares

Grace Duffy, John S. Garrison & Anthony Rhodd

9. Michael Chekhov Technique: A Trauma-responsive Practice in Shakespeare in Prison

Frannie Shepherd-Bates

Practices

10. “Presume not that I am the thing I was”: Collaborative Theater Companies in English Prisons

Rowan Mackenzie, Pheelix Obun, & Ian West

11. “Like Bright Metal on a Sullen Ground”: The First Six Months of a Prison Shakespeare Program

Kate Powers

12. Wasps and Falcons: Figurative Language and Teaching Shakespeare’s Women

Karrah Davidson and Amanda Kellogg

13. Counter-Readings: Reimagining Shakespeare in Prison Libraries

Kevin Windhauser

14. I Was Octavius Caesar

Reginald Sinclair Lewis

Futures

15.  Within and Beyond: Shakespeare Behind/BEYOND Bars

Sammie Byron & Curt L. Tofteland

16. Time Out of Joint: Taking Shakespeare from Prisons to Schools

Elder “Tariq” Beaudouin, Amiti Bey, Charles Hardy III, Deena Hurwitz, Steve Rowland, Shamah ShaRize, Mohendra Singh, & Caroline Young

17. Marin Shakespeare Company and the Returned Citizens Theatre Troupe

Lesley Schisgall Currier

Bibliography

Index

Biography

Liz Fox is Arts and Academic Programs Coordinator at the Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. She teaches literature courses for a variety of prison education programs.

Gina Hausknecht is Professor of English and the director of the Prison Learning Initiative at Coe College, USA.

"Shakespeare in the Age of Mass Incarceration is a powerful exploration of what classical literature can bring to modern carceral realities. The essays invite readers to witness how incarcerated individuals use Shakespeare not just to understand themselves and their circumstances, but also to challenge the structures that surround them. This book provides a nuanced examination of how Shakespearean performance and study offer resistance and reflection, creating spaces for critical thinking, creativity, and self-expression in a setting designed to strip them away. For anyone interested in the intersections of education, art, and justice, and wishing to avoid worn tropes of individual redemption and reform, this book offers both a critique of the carceral system and visions of its potential transformation." - Rebecca Ginsburg, Associate Professor of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, and co-founder and Director of the Education Justice Project, a comprehensive college-in-prison at the University  of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

"Shakespeare in the Age of Mass Incarceration is one of the most important volumes to be published on the past, present, and future of Shakespeare in prison. In addition to crafting an illuminating introduction that brilliantly surveys the current state of the field, Fox and Hausknecht have assembled a venerable body of scholars, practitioners, and justice systems-impacted contributors that chronicle their approaches to (and/or encounters with) carceral Shakespeare. The scope of the work is nothing short of inspiring; from first-person accounts highlighting the work of some of the world's foremost Shakespeare in prison programs, compelling arguments that challenge the hegemony of Shakespeare in multicultural spaces, to essays that champion trauma-informed pedagogies when engaging with these 400 year-old plays. This book provides an essential resource to anyone serving (or hoping to serve) prison populations through the performing arts." -Scott Jackson, Mary Irene Ryan Executive Artistic Director of Shakespeare, University of Notre Dame, USA; co-founder of the Shakespeare in Prisons Network; and president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association (2025-2027)

 

"Shakespeare in the Age of Mass Incarceration is an exciting new book that is essential reading for those who wish to understand what is happening with “the Shakespeare Revolution” in prisons today. Breathtaking in its scope, this volume contains 19 appreciative and critical investigations by artists, scholars, teachers, students, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated citizens. Through first-person accounts by those who do the work within and beyond the confines of the prison industrial complex, we learn what makes Shakespeare so engaging, enriching, controversial, and liberating." - Jonathan Shailor, Emeritus Professor of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, USA, and Founder and Director of The Shakespeare Prison Project (2004–present)