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  • © 2017

The Shakespeare User

Critical and Creative Appropriations in a Networked Culture

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Contextualizes Shakespeare and his work in modern applications including digital social media platforms, gaming, and non-literary scholarship
  • Provides an innovative update to Shakespearean scholarship, bringing the field into the digital age
  • Unites a diverse body of authorship, from up-and-coming to established scholars
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Reproducing Shakespeare (RESH)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
  2. Introduction: The Shakespeare User

    • Valerie M. Fazel, Louise Geddes
    Pages 1-22
  3. South of Elsinore: Actions that a Man Might Play

    • Matthew Harrison, Michael Lutz
    Pages 23-40
  4. Theorizing User Agency in YouTube Shakespeare

    • Stephen O’Neill
    Pages 129-147
  5. Shakespeare and Disciplinarity

    • Laura Estill
    Pages 167-186
  6. Opening Shakespeare from the Margins

    • Eric M. Johnson
    Pages 187-205
  7. Shakespeare and the Undead

    • Graham Holderness
    Pages 207-228
  8. Back Matter

    Pages 229-257

About this book

This innovative collection explores uses of Shakespeare in a wide variety of 21st century contexts, including business manuals, non-literary scholarship, database aggregation, social media, gaming, and creative criticism. Essays in this volume demonstrate that users’ critical and creative uses of the dramatist’s works position contemporary issues of race, power, identity, and authority in new networks that redefine Shakespeare and reconceptualize the ways in which he is processed in both scholarly and popular culture. While The Shakespeare User contributes to the burgeoning corpus of critical works on digital and Internet Shakespeares, this volume looks beyond the study of Shakespeare artifacts to the system of use and users that constitute the Shakespeare network. This reticular understanding of Shakespeare use expands scholarly forays into non-academic practices, digital discourse communities, and creative critical works manifest via YouTube, Twitter, blogs, databases, websites, and popular fiction. 

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of English, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA

    Valerie M. Fazel

  • English Department, Adelphi University, Garden City, USA

    Louise Geddes

About the editors

Valerie M. Fazel teaches at Arizona State University. Her work on Shakespeare and digital media has been published in Borrowers and Lenders and Shakespeare (with Louise Geddes). 

Louise Geddes is Assistant Professor of English at Adelphi University. She is the author of Appropriating Shakespeare: A Cultural History of Pyramus and Thisbe (2017). Her work has appeared in Shakespeare Bulletin, MaRDiE, Interdisciplinary Studies, and Shakespeare Survey.  

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Shakespeare User

  • Book Subtitle: Critical and Creative Appropriations in a Networked Culture

  • Editors: Valerie M. Fazel, Louise Geddes

  • Series Title: Reproducing Shakespeare

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61015-3

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-61014-6Published: 06 October 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86984-1Published: 17 May 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-61015-3Published: 26 September 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2730-9304

  • Series E-ISSN: 2730-9312

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 257

  • Number of Illustrations: 8 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Digital Humanities, Cultural Theory

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access