This collection of scholarly essays offers a new understanding of local and global myths that have been constructed around Shakespeare in theatre, cinema, and television from the nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on a definition of myth as a powerful ideological narrative, Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance examines historical, political, and cultural conditions of Shakespearean performances in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The first part of this volume offers a theoretical introduction to Shakespeare as myth from a twenty-first century perspective. The second part critically evaluates myths of linguistic transcendence, authenticity, and universality within broader European, neo-liberal, and post-colonial contexts. The study of local identities and global icons in the third part uncovers dynamic relationships between regional, national, and transnational myths of Shakespeare. The fourth part revises persistent narratives concerning a political potential of Shakespeare's plays in communist and post-communist countries. Finally, part five explores the influence of commercial and popular culture on Shakespeare myths. Michael Dobson's Afterword concludes the volume by locating Shakespeare within classical mythology and contemporary concerns.

This year publishing its twentieth volume, The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare’s work and his time, across the whole spectrum of his literary output. Contributions are solicited from scholars across the field, from both hemispheres of the globe. New trends are evaluated from the point of view of established scholarship, and emerging work in the field is encouraged. Each issue includes a special section under the guidance of a specialist Guest Editor, along with coverage of the current state of the field in other aspects. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual publication captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in Shakespeare scholarship and theater practice worldwide. There is a particular emphasis on Shakespeare studies in global contexts.

Allusions to Shakespeare haunt our contemporary culture in a myriad of ways, whether through brief references or sustained intertextual engagements. Shakespeare's plays and motifs have been appropriated in fragmentary forms onstage and onscreen since motion pictures were invented in 1893. This collection of essays extends beyond a US-UK axis to bring together an international group of scholars to explore Shakespearean appropriations in unexpected contexts in lesser-known films and television shows in India, Brazil, Russia, France, Australia, South Africa, East-Central Europe and Italy, with reference to some filmed stage works.

Publishing its nineteenth volume, The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare’s work and his time, across the whole spectrum of his literary output. Contributions are solicited from scholars across the field, from both hemispheres of the globe. New trends are evaluated from the point of view of established scholarship, and emerging work in the field is encouraged. Each issue includes a special section under the guidance of a specialist Guest Editor, along with coverage of the current state of the field in other aspects. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual publication captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in Shakespeare scholarship and theater practice worldwide. There is a particular emphasis on Shakespeare studies in global contexts.

Performing Shakespearean Appropriations explores the production and consumption of Shakespeare in acts of adaptation and appropriation across time periods and through a range of performance topics. The ten essays, moving from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, address uses of Shakespeare in the novel, television, cinema, and digital media. Drawing on Christy Desmet's work, several contributors figure appropriation as a posthumanist enterprise that engages with electronic Shakespeare by dismantling, reassembling, and recreating Shakespearean texts in and for digital platforms. The collection thus looks at media and performance technologies diachronically in its focus on Shakespeare's afterlives. Contributors also construe the notion of "performance" broadly to include performances of selves, of communities, of agencies, and of authenticity-either Shakespeare's, or the user's, or both. The essays examine both specific performances and larger trends across media, and they consider a full range of modes: from formal and professional to casual and amateur; from the fixed and traditional to the ephemeral, the itinerant, and the irreverent.

Publishing its nineteenth volume, The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare's work and his time, across the whole spectrum of his literary output. Contributions are solicited from scholars across the field, from both hemispheres of the globe. New trends are evaluated from the point of view of established scholarship, and emerging work in the field is encouraged. Each issue includes a special section under the guidance of a specialist Guest Editor, along with coverage of the current state of the field in other aspects. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual publication captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in Shakespeare scholarship and theater practice worldwide. There is a particular emphasis on Shakespeare studies in global contexts.

For its eighteenth volume, The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare's work and his time, across the whole spectrum of his literary output. Contributions are solicited from among the most active and insightful scholars in the field, from both hemispheres of the globe. New trends are evaluated from the point of view of established scholarship, and emerging work in the field is encouraged. Each issue includes a special section under the guidance of a specialist guest editor, along with coverage of the current state of the field. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual publication captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in Shakespeare scholarship and theater practice worldwide. There is a particular emphasis on Shakespeare studies in global contexts.

Currently in its seventeenth year and formerly published by Ashgate, The Shakespearean International Yearbook surveys the present state of Shakespeare studies, addressing issues that are fundamental to our interpretive encounter with Shakespeare's work and his time, across the whole spectrum of his literary output. Contributions are solicited from among the most active and insightful scholars in the field, from both hemispheres of the globe. New trends are evaluated from the point of view of established scholarship, and emerging work in the field encouraged, to present a view of what is happening all around the world. Each issue includes a special section under the guidance of a specialist Guest Editor, as well as a review of recent critical work in Shakespeare studies. An essential reference tool for scholars of early modern literature and culture, this annual captures, from year to year, current and developing thought in Shakespeare scholarship and theater practice worldwide.

Allusions to Shakespeare haunt our contemporary culture in a myriad of ways, whether through brief references or sustained intertextual engagements. Shakespeare’s plays and motifs have been appropriated in fragmentary forms onstage and onscreen since motion pictures were invented in 1893. This collection of essays extends beyond a US-UK axis to bring together an international group of scholars to explore Shakespearean appropriations in unexpected contexts in lesser-known films and television shows in India, Brazil, Russia, France, Australia, South Africa, East-Central Europe and Italy, with reference to some filmed stage works.

Shakespeare's tragedies have been performed in the Sinophone world for over two centuries. Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are three of the most frequently adapted plays. They have been re-imagined as political theatre, comedic parody, Chinese opera, avant-garde theatre, and experimental theatre in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. This ground-breaking anthology features the first English translations of seven influential adaptations from 1987 to 2007 across a number of traditional and modern performance genres in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Each of the book's three sections offers a pair of two contrasting versions of each tragedy - in two distinct genres - for comparative analysis. This anthology is an indispensable tool for the teaching and research of Sinophone theatre's engagement with Western classics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Race offers a compelling introduction to the study of ideas related to race throughout history. Its breadth of coverage, both geographically and temporally, provides readers with an expansive, global understanding of the term from the classical period onwards. This concise guide offers an overview of: Intersections of Race and Gender Race and Social Theory Identity, Ethnicity, and Immigration Whiteness Legislative and Judicial Markings of Difference Race in South Africa, Israel, East Asia, Asian America Blackness in a Global Context Race in the History of Science Critical Race Theory This clear and engaging study is essential reading for students of Literature, Culture, and Race.

Race offers a compelling introduction to the study of ideas related to race throughout history. Its breadth of coverage, both geographically and temporally, provides readers with an expansive, global understanding of the term from the classical period onwards. This concise guide offers an overview of: Intersections of Race and Gender Race and Social Theory Identity, Ethnicity, and Immigration Whiteness Legislative and Judicial Markings of Difference Race in South Africa, Israel, East Asia, Asian America Blackness in a Global Context Race in the History of Science Critical Race Theory This clear and engaging study is essential reading for students of Literature, Culture, and Race.

Shakespeare’s tragedies have been performed in the Sinophone world for over two centuries. Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear are three of the most frequently adapted plays. They have been re-imagined as political theatre, comedic parody, Chinese opera, avant-garde theatre, and experimental theatre in Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. This ground-breaking anthology features the first English translations of seven influential adaptations from 1987 to 2007 across a number of traditional and modern performance genres in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei. Each of the book's three sections offers a pair of two contrasting versions of each tragedy - in two distinct genres - for comparative analysis. This anthology is an indispensable tool for the teaching and research of Sinophone theatre's engagement with Western classics in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.   

Structured around modes in which one might encounter Asian-themed performances and adaptations, Shakespeare and East Asia identifies four themes that distinguish post-1950s East Asian cinemas and theatres from works in other parts of the world: Japanese formalistic innovations in sound and spectacle; reparative adaptations from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; the politics of gender and reception of films and touring productions in South Korea and the UK; and multilingual, diaspora works in Singapore and the UK. These adaptations break new ground in sound and spectacle; they serve as a vehicle for artistic and political remediation or, in some cases, the critique of the myth of reparative interpretations of literature; they provide a forum where diasporic artists and audiences can grapple with contemporary issues; and, through international circulation, they are reshaping debates about the relationship between East Asia and Europe. Bringing film and theatre studies together, this book sheds new light on the two major genres in a comparative context and reveals deep structural and narratological connections among Asian and Anglophone performances. These adaptations are products of metacinematic and metatheatrical operations, contestations among genres for primacy, or experimentations with features of both film and theatre.

King Lear is a play for our times. The central characters experience intense suffering in a hostile and unpredictable world. They face domestic cruelty, political defeat, and a stormy external environment that invades them 'to the skin.' They constantly question the meaning of their experiences as we watch their emotions range from despair to rage to unexpected tenderness and desperate hope as they are rejected, even tortured. Lear's daughters, as in a fairy tale, are three strong women. The elder two vie for sexual and political power, while the youngest, Cordelia, is initially banished because of her plain speaking, then returns in a doomed attempt to restore her father to his throne. King Lear has an unusual performance history. It was significantly revised, by Shakespeare or others, between its first two publications, and was then succeeded by an adaptation that softened the ending so that Lear and Cordelia survived. In our own times King Lear is performed around the world in productions that explore its relevance to contemporary political and environmental challenges. This edition offers a distinctive 'extended' text, taking the later Folio as a starting point and adding the lines that appear only in the Quarto, distinguished by a light gray background. Variations in individual words that are of critical interest are recorded in the margin.

This collection of scholarly essays offers a new understanding of local and global myths that have been constructed around Shakespeare in theatre, cinema, and television from the nineteenth century to the present. Drawing on a definition of myth as a powerful ideological narrative, Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance examines historical, political, and cultural conditions of Shakespearean performances in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The first part of this volume offers a theoretical introduction to Shakespeare as myth from a twenty-first century perspective. The second part critically evaluates myths of linguistic transcendence, authenticity, and universality within broader European, neo-liberal, and post-colonial contexts. The study of local identities and global icons in the third part uncovers dynamic relationships between regional, national, and transnational myths of Shakespeare. The fourth part revises persistent narratives concerning a political potential of Shakespeare's plays in communist and post-communist countries. Finally, part five explores the influence of commercial and popular culture on Shakespeare myths. Michael Dobson's Afterword concludes the volume by locating Shakespeare within classical mythology and contemporary concerns.

Structured around modes in which one might encounter Asian-themed performances and adaptations, Shakespeare and East Asia identifies four themes that distinguish post-1950s East Asian cinemas and theatres from works in other parts of the world: Japanese formalistic innovations in sound and spectacle; reparative adaptations from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; the politics of gender and reception of films and touring productions in South Korea and the UK; and multilingual, diaspora works in Singapore and the UK. These adaptations break new ground in sound and spectacle; they serve as a vehicle for artistic and political remediation or, in some cases, the critique of the myth of reparative interpretations of literature; they provide a forum where diasporic artists and audiences can grapple with contemporary issues; and, through international circulation, they are reshaping debates about the relationship between East Asia and Europe. Bringing film and theatre studies together, this book sheds new light on the two major genres in a comparative context and reveals deep structural and narratological connections among Asian and Anglophone performances. These adaptations are products of metacinematic and metatheatrical operations, contestations among genres for primacy, or experimentations with features of both film and theatre.