Short description:

In the modern world, references to Shakespeare frequently mark moments of catastrophe and of the longing for restoring social order. Drawing on cases from around the world, this book interrogates the idea that performing or reading Shakespeare has socially reparative value.

Long description:

In the modern world, references to Shakespeare frequently mark moments of catastrophe and of the accompanying longing for restoring social order, remedying injuries, and building strong communities. Shakespeare?s moral authority has often been invoked to support artistic projects that claimed social justice as their goal on the assumption that drama has the power to manipulate perceptual reality. Drawing on cases from around the world, this book interrogates the idea that performing or reading Shakespeare has socially reparative value. It acknowledges the abuse of Shakespeare as a source of social wellbeing practices in the arts. The global framework shows that it is problematic to view Shakespeare as an impartial moral center.

This book proposes that reparative creativity, or remedial uses of the canon, can give artists and audiences more agency. Having a map of canonical texts? hidden ideologies can help readers, artists, and playgoers navigate its landscape, which is in itself a reparative act.

Table of Contents:

General Editor

List of Contributors

Preface

Alexa Alice Joubin and Natalia Khomenko

1          Theorizing Social Reparation: Introduction to Reparative Global Shakespeare

Alexa Alice Joubin and Natalia Khomenko

Part I  British Shakespeare and Soft Power

2          Shakespeare and International (Soft?) Power: Through the Lens of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust?s Collections

Helen A. Hopkins

3          Shakespearean Neverwheres: Victoria (BC), Anne Hathaway?s Cottage, and Nostalgia for ?Merry Olde England?

Sarah Crover

Part II Postcolonial Reparation

4          Hamlet in Kashmir, Hamlet as Kashmir: The Politics of Place in Vishal Bhardwaj?s Haider (2014)

Afreen Sen Chatterji

5          Can the Rwandese Speak?: European Colonial Legacy in Ben Proudfoot?s Rwanda & Juliet (2016)

Cynthia May Martin

Part III           Shakespeare and the Holocaust

6          Shylock and the Resentments of Jean Améry

Richard Ashby

7         Repairing Generational Trauma Through Cordelia, Mein Kind: An Interview With Deborah Leiser-Moore

Natalia Khomenko

Part IV            Political Mis/Appropriations

8          ?A Language I Speak?: Shakespearean Explorations in Portuguese, Argentine, and English Prisons

Sheila T. Cavanagh and Maria Sequeira Mendes

9          Feeling With Othello: The Ethical Implications of Ideological Empathy

Natalia Khomenko

Part V Year in Review

10        Race and the ?Global? in Shakespeare Studies

Anandi Rao

Index