The Shakespeare and Inclusivity project continues with a public lecture by Peter Holland, McMeel Family Professor in Shakespeare Studies at Notre Dame University.
Shakespeare and Inclusivity: a semester long case-study of The Merchant of Venice is co-presented by the Department of Theatre and Shakespeare in Action, an initiative led by faculty in the UNC Charlotte Theatre and English departments that presents talks, presentations, and productions for both the campus population and the general public.
"As Shakespeare studies, as in every other part of the Academy, deals with issues of racism and other forms of exclusion (gender, sexuality, age, disability, etc.), where does that leave Merchant of Venice?" says Holland. "It is a play with a profoundly troubled past but, it often seems, an untroubled present. I shall want to worry at and worry about that surface tranquility and see what we currently seem to be avoiding confronting. I join my fellow Anglo-Jewish writer David Baddiel in wondering why it so often seems that 'Jews don't count.'"
Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Professor in Shakespeare Studies at Notre Dame University. He was editor of Shakespeare Survey, the UK’s leading academic Shakespeare journal for 19 years, co-General Editor, with Stanley Wells and Lena Orlin, of Oxford Shakespeare Topics (Oxford University Press, over 30 volumes to date); with Adrian Poole, of the 18-volume series Great Shakespeareans (Bloomsbury Academic, 2009-13); with Farah Karim-Cooper and Stephen Purcell of a monograph series, Shakespeare in the Theatre (Bloomsbury Academic, 15 volumes to date); and, with Zachary Leader and Tiffany Stern, of the Arden Shakespeare 4th series. He has also edited many Shakespeare plays.