for David

Hey!  I just got an e-mail update from Academia.edu and one of the articles they sent me is called "The Problem of Citizenship in "Othello" and "The Merchant of Venice."  I thought it might interest you!

I'm not sure if you have to be a member of Academia.edu to look through the articles, but if I remember correctly it was pretty easy to sign up for and might be worth it.  This is the description of the article:

This paper is a working proposal that applies recent scholarship in political theory to Shakespeare's "Othello" and "The Merchant of Venice". It argues that the tragic potential of these two plays, in which issues of race and ethnicity are particularly potent, stems from their protagonists' (in)ability to negotiate their identity as multicultural citizens. It also considers the significance of the use of Venice as a setting for the plays, and therefore the implications for our understanding of what it meant to be a citizen in Renaissance London.

Researching Shakespeare Socially

"Now, I am alone" -- Hamlet 2.2.558
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" -- Henry V 4.3.62

Why do those researching and writing about Shakespeare do so alone? Nothing could be more social than drama: the players, the audience, the great ensemble of people that come together to make and enjoy a performance.

Something changes when Shakespeare shifts from being entertainment to being a subject of study. Of course, classrooms are social environments, often lively with discussion, recitations, amateur soliloquies, etc. But when students and scholars get down to the serious business of writing and researching and writing, they are no longer (like King Henry's embattled Englishment at Agincourt) "we few, we happy few"; no, they are more like the introspective (and often melancholic) Hamlet -- left to themselves to ruminate on meanings in unhealthy isolation.

Should Shakespeare be studied collaboratively?

We live in a new age, a time in which it is more natural to be social than to be isolated, a time when it is unnatural not to be sharing constantly through the available social media through which we update ourselves and others, connecting through the rich variety of content so literally at hand today.

Sadly, too many students (and their teachers) segregate their socially mediated selves from their academic selves. But why should they? If via Facebook or Twitter I can express interest in current events or report to a network of friends about what gets my attention, why can't I (or won't I) narrate my encounters with Shakespeare (or any school subject)?