Spotlight on Shakespeare offers a series of concise, lucid books that explore the vital purchase of the modern world on Shakespeare’s work. Authors in the series embrace the notion that emergent theories, contemporary events, and movements can help us shed new light on Shakespeare’s work and, in turn, his work can help us better make sense of the contemporary world.
The aim of each volume is two-fold: to show how Shakespeare speaks to questions in our world and to illuminate his work by looking at it through new forms of human expression. Spotlight on Shakespeare will adopt fresh scholarly trends as contemporary issues emerge, and it will continually prompt its readers to ask, "What can Shakespeare help us see? What can he help us do?"
Spotlight on Shakespeare invites scholars to write non-exhaustive, pithy studies of very focused topics—with the goal of creating books that engage scholars, students, and general readers alike.
By Amanda Bailey
March 10, 2023
Choice is the defining issue of the twenty-first century. As the #MeToo movement extends its legal, social, and political reach around the world, the topic of consent has come under particular scrutiny. Shakespeare on Consent examines crises of consent on the early modern stage and argues that ...
By Islam Issa
September 30, 2021
Shakespeare and Terrorism delves into how extremists have responded to Shakespeare – whether they’ve attacked him or been inspired by him – and investigates what the playwright and his works can tell us about the nature, psychology, and consequences of terror. Literary critic and historian Islam ...
By Indira Ghose
September 09, 2021
Shakespeare in Jest draws fascinating parallels between Shakespeare's humour and contemporary humour. Indira Ghose argues that while many of Shakespeare's jokes no longer work for us, his humour was crucial in shaping comedy in today's entertainment industry. The book looks at a wide variety of ...
By Ruben Espinosa
June 24, 2021
Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism examines Shakespeare in relation to ongoing conversations that interrogate the vulnerability of Black and brown people amid oppressive structures that aim to devalue their worth. By focusing on the way these individuals are racialized, politicized, policed, and ...
By Stephen Guy-Bray
July 10, 2020
In this engaging and accessible guidebook, Stephen Guy-Bray uses queer theory to argue that in many of Shakespeare’s works representation itself becomes queer. Shakespeare often uses representation, not just as a lens through which to tell a story, but as a textual tool in itself. Shakespeare and ...
By Kyle Pivetti, John S. Garrison
October 04, 2018
In the current climate of global military conflict and terrorism, Shakespeare at Peace offers new readings of Shakespeare’s plays, illuminating a discourse of peace previously shadowed by war and violence. Using contemporary examples such as speeches, popular music, and science fiction adaptations ...
