Marjorie Garber examines the rites of passage and maturation patterns--"coming of age"--in Shakespeare's plays. Citing examples from virtually the entire Shakespeare canon, she pays particular attention to the way his characters grow and change at points of personal crisis. Among the crises Garber discusses are: separation from parent or sibling in preparation for sexual love and the choice of husband or wife; the use of names and nicknames as a sign of individual exploits or status; virginity, sexual initiation and the acceptance of sexual maturity, childbearing and parenthood; and, finally, attitudes toward death and dying.

"Bisexuality is about three centuries overdue . . . nevertheless, here it is: a learned, witty study of how our curious culture has managed to get everything wrong about sex." -Gore Vidal

The title of this collection, Profiling Shakespeare, is meant strongly, in its double sense. These essays show the outline of a Shakespeare rather different from the man sought so earnestly and eagerly by biographers from his time to our own. And they also show the effects, the ephemera, the clues and cues, welcome and unwelcome, out of which Shakespeare's admirers, citers, fans and dedicated scholars have pieced together a vision of the playwright, whether as sage, lover, psychologist, guidance counselor, or successful businessman. This collection brings together classic pieces, hard-to-find chapters, and two new essays. Here, Garber has produced a series of essays at once serious and highly readable, each one ranging broadly across time periods (early modern to postmodern) and touching upon both high and popular culture.

Contents: Preface 1. Shakespeare's Ghost Writers 2. Hamlet: Giving Up the Ghost 3. Macbeth: The Male Medusa 4. Shakespeare as Fetish 5. Character Assassination 6. Out of Joint 7. Roman Numerals 8. Second-Best Bed 9. Shakespeare's Dogs 10. Shakespeare's Laundry List 11. Shakespeare's Faces 12. MacGuffin Shakespeare 13. Fatal Cleopatra 14. What Did Shakespeare Invent? 15. Bartlett's Familiar Shakespeare

The title of this collection, Profiling Shakespeare, is meant strongly, in its double sense. These essays show the outline of a Shakespeare rather different from the man sought so earnestly and eagerly by biographers from his time to our own. And they also show the effects, the ephemera, the clues and cues, welcome and unwelcome, out of which Shakespeare's admirers, citers, fans and dedicated scholars have pieced together a vision of the playwright, whether as sage, lover, psychologist, guidance counselor, or successful businessman. This collection brings together classic pieces, hard-to-find chapters, and two new essays. Here, Garber has produced a series of essays at once serious and highly readable, each one ranging broadly across time periods (early modern to postmodern) and touching upon both high and popular culture.

Contents: Preface 1. Shakespeare's Ghost Writers 2. Hamlet: Giving Up the Ghost 3. Macbeth: The Male Medusa 4. Shakespeare as Fetish 5. Character Assassination 6. Out of Joint 7. Roman Numerals 8. Second-Best Bed 9. Shakespeare's Dogs 10. Shakespeare's Laundry List 11. Shakespeare's Faces 12. MacGuffin Shakespeare 13. Fatal Cleopatra 14. What Did Shakespeare Invent? 15. Bartlett's Familiar Shakespeare

The Medusa Reader is the first major anthology of primary and critical material on this enigmatic figure, a symbol of all that is irresistible, fascinating and terrifying. Ranging from classical times to pop culture, this collection will appeal to art historians, feminists, classicists, cultural critics and anyone interested in mythology.

In this new book of essays, brilliant cultural critic Marjorie Garber turns to the history of words, great writers, everyday speech, and the painted image to spin tales about the way we live. Written with characteristic verve, Quotation Marks considers, among other subjects, how we depend on the most quotable men and women in history to bolster what we have to say. What does morality have to do with style? What's the difference between work and 'work'? What do we admire and what do we imitate, and what does either have to do with love? Why are sequels so enticing, she asks?
Reading these essays is to experience the pleasure of watching a remarkable critic grapple with the curious and the everyday, and make both speak to the question between the quotation marks: 'Who are we now?'

Based on a conference held at the Center for Literary Studies at Harvard University, this collection of essays from scholars in literature, philosophy, politics, and medicine seeks to shed new light on the wide range of ethical debates raging today; from bioethics and the ethics of political action to the ethics of reading and making distinctions between morality and ethics.

Based on a conference held at the Center for Literary Studies at Harvard University, this collection of essays from the leading scholars in literature, philosophy, politics, and medicine casts new light on the wide range of ethical debates raging today, from bioethics and the ethics of political action to the ethics of reading and making distinctions between morality and ethics.

One Nation Under God? is a remarkable consideration of how religion manifests itself in America today.

Is America a religious nation? A nation of many religions? Is there an American religion? One Nation Under God is a remarkable consideration of how religion manifests itself in America today. Drawing on the extraordinary diversity of America's cultures, this gathering of distinguished scholars considers such subjects as the nature of public religious expression, African American civic virtue, the relation between law and religion, religion in secular society, the Holocaust Memorial, the cloistered closet, cults of death, and the sacralization of Elvis. Piety and popular culture, public space and private, the secular and the sacred all converge in America's religious experience.

The plays of Shakespeare are filled with ghosts--and ghost writing. In "Shakespeare's Ghost Writers, " Marjorie Garber begins with an examination of the authorship controversy surrounding Shakespeare: the claim made repeatedly that the plays were ghostwritten. Garber asks what is at stake in the imputation that "Shakespeare" did not write the plays and argues that the plays themselves both thematize and theorize that controversy.

Drawing upon the work of anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists, Marjorie Garber examines the rites of passage and maturation patterns--"coming of age"--in Shakespeare's plays. Citing examples from virutally the entire Shakespeare canon, she pays particular attention to the way his characters grow and change at points of personal crisis. Among the crises Garber discusses are: separation from parent or sibling in preparation for sexual love and the choice of husband or wife; the use of names and nicknames as a sign of individual exploits or status; virginity, sexual initiation and the acceptance of sexual maturity, childbearing and parenthood; and, finally, attitudes toward death and dying.
In this fascinating and original analysis, Marjorie Garber explores the ways in which the Shakespearean protagonist is challenged to change as his or her circumstances change--to adapt to the world and the people around him, and to come to terms with the nature and finitude of the human condition.

This volume of presents an account of current thinking on central issues within and beyond the humanities. It brings together such leading figures as Sacvan Bercovitch and Helen Vendler, Anthony Appiah and Barbara Johnson, Seyla Benhabib and Norman Bryson, Martha Minow and Henry Louis Gates,Jr, Marjorie Garber and Susan Suleiman. It explores such questions as: What is culture? What are cultures? Are literary texts and cultural texts different? What do literary and other fields engaged in cultural work have in common? What can literary studies profitably do with other disciplines? and What can cultural studies tell us about culture ?

This presents an account of current thinking on central issues within and beyond the humanities today. Brings together leading figures such as Sacvan Bercovitch, Helen Vendler, Anthony Appiah, Norman Bryson, Seyla Benhabib and Marjorie Garber.

The 1950's trial of the Rosenburgs on charges of 'atomic spying' came to stand in many minds for the paranoia of the Cold War. Many of the issues are still with us and the contributors draw salient connections between that time and this.

Series Information:
CultureWork: A Book Series from the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies at Harvard

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.

The plays of Shakespeare are filled with ghosts - and ghost writing. Shakespeare's Ghost Writers is an examination of the authorship controversy surrounding Shakespeare: the claim made repeatedly that the plays were ghost written. Ghosts take the form of absences, erasures, even forgeries and signatures - metaphors extended to include Shakespeare himself and his haunting of us, and in particular theorists such Derrida, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud - the figure of Shakespeare constantly made and remade by contemporary culture. Marjorie Garber, one of the most eminent Shakespearean theorists writing today, asks what is at stake in the imputation that "Shakespeare" did not write the plays, and shows that the plays themselves both thematize and theorize that controversy. This Routledge Classics edition contains a new preface and new chapter by the author.

The Medusa Reader is the first major anthology of primary and critical material on this enigmatic figure, a symbol of all that is irresistible, fascinating and terrifying. Ranging from classical times to pop culture, this collection will appeal to art historians, feminists, classicists, cultural critics and anyone interested in mythology.

Beginning with the bold claim, "There can be no culture without the transvestite," Marjorie Garber explores the nature and significance of cross-dressing and of the West's recurring fascination with it. Rich in anecdote and insight, Vested Interests offers a provocative and entertaining view of our ongoing obsession with dressing up--and with the power of clothes.

The plays of Shakespeare are filled with ghosts a " and ghost writing. Shakespeare's Ghost Writers is an examination of the authorship controversy surrounding Shakespeare: the claim made repeatedly that the plays were ghost written.

Ghosts take the form of absences, erasures, even forgeries and signatures a " metaphors extended to include Shakespeare himself and his haunting of us, and in particular theorists such Derrida, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud a " the figure of Shakespeare constantly made and remade by contemporary culture.

Marjorie Garber, one of the most eminent Shakespearean theorists writing today, asks what is at stake in the imputation that "Shakespeare" did not write the plays, and shows that the plays themselves both thematize and theorize that controversy.

This Routledge Classics edition contains a new preface and new chapter by the author.

As a break from their ordained labors, what might the Muses today do on their lunch hour? This collection of witty, shrewd, and imaginative essays addresses interdisciplinary topics that range widely from Shakespeare, to psychoanalysis, to the practice of higher education today. With the ease born of deep knowledge, Marjorie Garber moves from comical journalistic quirks ("Fig Leaves") to the curious return of myth and ritual in the theories of evolutionary psychologists ("Ovid, Now and Then"). Two themes emerge consistently in Garber's latest exploration of symptoms of culture. The first is that to predict the "next big thing" in literary studies we should look back at ideas and practices set aside by a previous generation of critics. In the past several decades we have seen the reemergence of-for example-textual editing, biography, character criticism, aesthetics, and philology as "hot" new areas for critical intervention. The second theme expands on this observation, making the case for "cultural forgetting" as the way the arts and humanities renew themselves, both within fields and across them. Although she is never represented in traditional paintings or poetry, a missing Muse-we can call her Amnesia-turns out to be a key figure for the creation of theory and criticism in the arts.

In Loaded Words the inimitable literary and cultural critic Marjorie Garber invites readers to join her in a rigorous and exuberant exploration of language. What links the pieces included in this vibrant new collection is the author's contention that all words are inescapably loaded-that is, highly charged, explosive, substantial, intoxicating, fruitful, and overbrimming-and that such loading is what makes language matter. Garber casts her keen eye on terms from knowledge, belief, madness, interruption, genius, and celebrity to humanities, general education, and academia. Included here are an array of stirring essays, from the title piece, with its demonstration of the importance of language to our thinking about the world; to the superb "Mad Lib," on the concept of madness from Mad magazine to debates between Foucault and Derrida; to pieces on Shakespeare, "the most culturally loaded name of our time," and the Renaissance. With its wide range of cultural references and engaging style coupled with fresh intellectual inquiry, Loaded Words will draw in and enchant scholars, students, and general readers alike.

In Shakespeare After All, Marjorie Garber--professor of English and director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University--gives us a magisterial work of criticism, authoritative and engaging, based on her hugely popular lecture courses at Yale and Harvard over the past thirty years. Richly informed by Shakespearean scholarship of the latter half of the twentieth century, this book offers passionate and revealing readings of all thirty-eight of Shakespeare's plays, in chronological sequence, from The Two Gentlemen of Verona to The Two Noble Kinsmen. With erudition lightly carried, Garber illumines the overarching patterns and lush details of the plays, closely attentive to what matters most in Shakespeare: language, theme, plot, and character.
Here are fresh meditations on plays we have come to know and love, such as Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth,
Othello, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tempest, and fruitful engagements with others not often read or produced--Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3; The Merry Wives of Windsor; King John; Timon of Athens; Pericles; and Cymbeline. Garber affords us a rare chance to trace Shakespeare's stylistic development as a writer of verse and prose, an artful designer of dramatic scenarios and revelations, a masterly sketcher of woman and man, and a keen observer of society high and low.
Complete with a comprehensive introduction to Shakespeare's life and times and an extensive bibliography, Shakespeare After All is a landmark work that enlarges our understanding of the most celebrated writer of all time.

"From the Hardcover edition.