The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance is a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on Shakespeare and performance studies by an international team of leading scholars. It contains chapters on the key methods and questions surrounding the performance event, the audience, and the archive - the primary sources on which performance studies draws. It identifies the recurring trends and fruitful lines of inquiry that are generating the most urgent work in the field, but also contextualises these within the histories and methods on which researchers build.
A central section of research-focused essays offers case studies of present areas of enquiry, from new approaches to space, bodies and language to work on the technologies of remediation and original practices, from consideration of fandoms and the cultural capital invested in Shakespeare and his contemporaries to political and ethical interventions in performance practice. A distinctive feature of the volume is a curated section focusing on practitioners, in which leading directors, writers, actors, producers, and other theatre professionals comment on Shakespeare in performance and what they see as the key areas, challenges and provocations for researchers to explore.
In addition, the Handbook contains various sections that provide non-specialists with practical help: an A-Z of key terms and concepts, a guide to research methods and problems, a chronology of major publications and events, an introduction to resources for study of the field, and a substantial annotated bibliography.
The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Contemporary Performance is a reference work aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars and libraries, a guide to beginning or developing research in the field, and an essential companion for all those interested in Shakespeare and performance.
This collection makes for an invigorating read as it injects critical energy into established debates and stretches the edges of the field just that little bit further. Contributors offer committed and thoughtful explorations of anti-racist pedagogies, ethics and cultural competence in the rehearsal room, and the structural changes organisations have to undergo in order to for them to be actively inclusive. Through thoughtful scholarship, interviews with a diverse selection of practitioners, and a range of research resources including an annotated bibliography and tour-de-force mapping of the entire field, this Handbook models what progressive Shakespeare performance studies may achieve in the coming decade.
