Shakespeare and Identity in a Divided World

Shakespeare and Identity in a Divided World examines some of the most pressing issues about identity and so-called identity politics in the highly polarized twenty-first century. The book uses Shakespeare’s plays and the history of sixteenth and seventeenth century England to discuss gender, race, mental health, disability, and fatness as they were perceived in Shakespeare’s age and then considers ways in which audiences, readers, and classrooms might use them to think about those same topics in the twenty-first century.

The book includes discussion of both Shakespeare’s text and contemporary productions, films, and reimaginings of those plays, as well as the historical and theoretical context relevant to each topic. Beginning with the question of Shakespeare’s identity, the book then goes on to discuss femininity, masculinity, trans and queer identity, race, mental health, and then disability and fatness before concluding with a discussion of Shakespeare’s condemnation of polarization, whether social or political.

Kristin M.S. Bezio is Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond. Her background is in theatre and early modern drama, and her publications include Staging Power in Tudor and Stuart History Plays (2015), The Eye of the Crown (2023), ＂’Munday I Sweare Shalbee a Hollidaye’ The Politics of Anthony Munday, from Anti-Catholic Spy to Civic Pageanteer (1579-1630),＂ in Études Anglaises (2018), and the edited volumes William Shakespeare & 21st Century Culture, Politics, and Leadership: Bard Bites with Anthony Presti Russell (2021), and Religion and the Medieval and Early Modern Global Marketplace (2021) and Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace (2021), both co-edited with Scott Oldenburg.