"Inspired by ongoing movements for social justice, equality, accountability, and truth, the scholars in this volume resituate Much Ado About Nothing in a contemporary critical context. From fake news to #MeToo, these essays explore how vital concerns of the present offer new ways of reading, performing, and understanding Much Ado"--
Inspired by ongoing movements for social justice, equality, accountability, and truth, the scholars in this volume resituate Much Ado About Nothing in a contemporary critical context. From fake news to #MeToo, these essays explore how vital concerns of the present offer new ways of reading, performing, and understanding Much Ado.
The essays in this volume rethink Much Ado About Nothing from the standpoint of the New Awareness. Scholars today are by necessity both the products and the producers of this awareness. Moreover, the essays in this collection touch upon problems that are germane to the political climate today and similar to the concerns reflected in this play. Three essays discuss epistemology and determining real information from its simulation. Other essays concern issues that are central to the #MeToo Movement, including rape culture and the credibility of women. Aside from the immediate textual and historical context, other essays address issues of race and gender in adaptations and theatrical productions, especially in young-adult prose adaptations of the play and in theaters practice of inclusive and race-conscious staging.
Introduction: W. Reginald Rampone, Jr. and Nicholas Utzig
Section I: Epistemology and Truth in Much Ado About Nothing
Chapter 1: Change Slander to Remorse: Acknowledgement and
(Self)-Recognition in Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing, Sélima Lejri
Chapter 2: Deceivers Ever: Much Ado About Nothing and Cultures of
Deception, Kathleen Kalpin Smith
Section II: Present and Past in Much Ado About Nothing
Chapter 3: The Threat of the Stranger in Much Ado About Nothing, Stephanie
Chamberlain
Chapter 4: In Messina Here: Shakespeares Use of Setting in Much Ado About
Nothing, Philip Goldfarb Styrt
Chapter 5: A Bird of My Tongue is Better than a Beast of Yours:
Metamorphosis and Moral Relativism in Much Ado About Nothing and #MeToo,
Christine Hoffman
Section III: Crime and Punishment in Much Ado About Nothing
Chapter 6: Punishing Wrongdoers and Other Things I Didnt Know I Needed From
A Romantic Comedy: Messina as a Post-Conflict Society, Kelsey Ridge
Chapter 7: Slut Shaming, Revenge Porn, and the Making of Meaning by
Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing, Anthony Guy Patricia
Chapter 8: Margarets Complicated Consent: An Overlooked Victim in Much Ado
About Nothing, Jolene Mendel
Section IV: Shakespearean Adaptation and Performance
Chapter 9: Till all graces be in one woman: Archetypes of Womanhood in YA
Adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing, Anna Graham
Chapter 10: Much Ado About Nothing, Performance and Cultural Identity, Jami
Rogers
Chapter 11: Teaching Kill Claudio in the Age of Streamed Shakespeare,
Joseph Sullivan
Chapter 12: Almost the copy of my child thats dead: Ghosts and Adaptation
in Joss Whedons Much Ado About Nothing, Jim Casey
Afterword
About the Authors
W. Reginald Rampone, Jr. is associate professor of English at South Carolina State University.
Nicholas Utzig is lecturer at Sarah Lawrence College.
