Description
Book SynopsisShakesqueer puts the most exciting queer theorists in conversation with the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Trade Review“The adventurous essays in
Shakesqueer demonstrate that queer theory does indeed need Shakespeare, if only to defy rumors of its own demise: the essays show what is vital about a queer studies that might have been thought by this point too domesticated or reified or ‘fixed’ to be intellectually vibrant.”—
Carolyn Dinshaw, author of
Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern“What happens when queer theory gets into bed with Shakespeare? A play in forty-eight acts, this spirited group production never ceases to entertain and surprise with its queer cast of characters: virgins, eunuchs, and lechers; queens, kings, and pageboys; tyrants, assassins, and killjoys; lions, tigers, and bears—oh my! Full of toil and trouble, wit and wisdom,
Shakesqueer succeeds where few other edited collections do: it puts the play back in playwright, and the fun back in theory.”—
Diana Fuss, Princeton University
“In the end, this book is a big, glorious mess, full of playful juxtapositions and frightening possibilities. It is thrilling. Theatre scholars, queer theorists, actors, directors, and dramaturges will all find something useful and interesting.” -- Michael Cramer * Sixteenth Century Journal *
“When studying endless Shakespeare plays on English Literature courses, we always had a hunch there were some exceptionally queer goings on beyond some same sex sonnets and this collection of essays proves us right. Earl on earl analysis sits beside complex queer theories on the bard.” * Gay Times *
“Few works of literary criticism deserve the descriptor ‘monumental,’ but this one does. . . . The book is both readable and witty. It is also important, for it drives the final nail into the coffin of 20th-century Shakespearean studies. . . . No hierarchies survive this book. Every play and poem receives a fresh new reading. . . . Essential. All readers.” -- M. J. Emery * Choice *
“If you're looking for clues to Romeo and Mercutio's secret romance in the new academic volume
Shakesqueer : A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by Madhavi Menon (Duke), you're barking up the wrong yew tree. American University professor Menon and her queer-theorist contributors find queerness in Shakespeare in that term's most all-encompassing meaning of oddball, unusual, or non-normative. But when you come to think of it, fairy queen Titania falling in love with an ass named Bottom is pretty queer, in all senses of the word.” -- Roberto Friedman * Bay Area Reporter *
“It is rare to see a volume that does so much, and does it with such consistent wit, thoughtfulness, and creativity. . . . In putting together this volume, Menon has done scholars from all fields and periods an immense service.
Shakesqueer gives us a very queer new reading ‘’companion’’ — friend, helpmeet, comrade-in-arms — that makes us exquisitely aware of the need for the perverse and disruptive critical practice its essays so pleasurably model.” -- Melissa E. Sanchez * Renaissance Quarterly *
“There’s something for every queer scholar and Bard-lover in the anthology; from bears in
Henry VIII to eunuchs in
Antony and Cleopatra, from the death drive in
Hamlet to precariously heterosexual marriages in
All’s Well that Ends Well, the contributing authors chart Shakespeare’s varied engagements with queerness, putting pressure on assumptions that Shakespeare has nothing to offer to contemporary queer theory. . . . The assorted essays assert that Shakespeare has as much to offer queer theory as queer theory can contribute to understanding and deconstructing the Bard’s texts. This book belongs on every bookish queer’s shelf, right where the leather-bound
Complete Works of William Shakespeare butts up against Butler and Foucault.” -- Kestryl Cael Lowrey * Lambda Literary Review *
“This fascinating collection of essays explores the queer elements within all of Shakespeare’s works. With contributions from scholars of both queer studies and Shakespeare, the volume represents a joining of the two fields rarely attempted before.”
-- Charles Green * Gay & Lesbian Review *
“[
Shakesqueer] manages to put the fun back into academic research.
Shakesqueer is a highly entertaining collection of essays, which all focus on the strange, the unusual, that is, the queer element in the Shakespearean oeuvre.” -- Veronika Schandl * European Journal of English Studies *
"For 'insider experts'—those who are Shakespeareans, queer theorists, or both (always, already, at once)—
Shakesqueer provides a garden of delights between its covers. . . .
Shakesqueer extends, enriches, and strengthens the vocabulary of Shakespeare criticism in concert with queer theory." -- Stephen F. Evans * Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction. Queer Shakes / Madhavi Menon 1
All is True (Henry VIII)
The Unbearable Sex of Henry VIII / Steven Bruhm 28
All's Well That Ends Well
Is Marriage Always Already Heterosexual? / Julie Crawford 39
Antony and Cleopatra
Aught an Eunuch Has / Ellis Hanson 48
As You Like It
Fortune's Turn / Valerie Rohy 55
Cardenio
"Absonant Desire": The Question of
Cardenio / Philip Lorenz 62
The Comedy of Errors
In Praise of Error / Lynne Huffer 72
Coriolanus
"Tell Me Not Wherein I Seem Unnatural": Queer Meditations on
Coriolanus in the Time of War / Jason Edwards 80
Cymbeline
desire vomit emptiness:
Cymbeline's Marriage Time / Amanda Berry 89
Hamlet
Hamlet's Wounded Name / Lee Edelman 97
Henry IV, Part 1
When Harry Met Harry / Matt Bell 106
Henry IV, Part 2
The Deep Structure of Sexuality: War and Masochism in
Henry IV, Part 2 / Daniel Juan Gil 114
King Henry V
Scrambling Harry and Sampling Hal / Drew Daniel 121
Henry VI, Part 1
"Wounded Alpha Bad Boy Soldier" / Mario Digangi 130
Henry VI, Part 2
The Gayest Play Ever / Stephen Guy-Bray 139
Henry VI, Part 3
Stay / Cary Howie 146
Julius Caeser
Thus, Always:
Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln / Bethany Schneider 152
King John
Queer Futility: Or,
The Life and Death of King John / Kathryn Schwarz 163
King Lear
Lear's Queer Cosmos / Laurie Shannon 171
A Lover's Complaint
Learning How to Love (Again) / Ashley T. Shelden 179
Love's Labour's Lost
The L Words / Madhavi Menon 187
Love's Labour's Won
Doctorin' the Bard: A Contemporary Appropriation of
Love's Labour's Won / Hector Kollias 194
Macbeth
Milk / Heather Love 201
Measure for Measure
Same-Saint Desire / Paul Morrison 209
The Merchant of Venice
The Rites of Queer Marriage in
The Merchant of Venice / Arthur L. Little Jr. 216
The Merry Wives of Windsor
What Do Women Want? / Jonathan Goldberg 225
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare's Ass Play / Richard Rambuss 234
Much Ado About Nothing
Closing Ranks, Keeping Company: Marriage Plots and the Will to be Single in
Much Ado About Nothing / Ann Pellegrini 245
Othello
Othello's Penis: Or, Islam in the Closet / Daniel Boyarin 254
Pericles
"Curious Pleasures":
Pericles beyond the Civility of Union / Patrick O'Malley 263
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Number There in Love Was Slain / Karl Steel 271
The Rape of Lucree
Desire My Pilot Is / Peter Coviello 278
Richard II
Pretty Richard / Judith Brown 286
Richard III
Fuck the Disabled: The Prequel / Robert McRuer 294
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet Love Death / Carla Freccero 302
Sir Thomas More
More or Less Queer / Jeffrey Masten 309
The Sonnets
Momma's Boy / Aranye Fradenburg 319
Speech Therapy / Barbara Johnson 328
More Life: Shakespeare's Sonnet Machines / Julian Yates 333
The Taming of the Shrew
Latin Lovers in
The Taming of the Shrew / Bruce Smith 343
The Tempest
Forgetting
The Tempest / Kevin Ohi 351
Timon of Athens
Skepticism, Sovereignty, Sodomy / James Kuzner 361
Titus Andronicus
A Child's Garden of Atrocities / Michael Moon 369
Troilus and Cressida
The Leather Men and the Lovely Boy: Reading Positions in
Troilus and Cressida / Alan Sinfeild 376
Twelfth Night
Is There an Audience for My Play? / Sharon Holland 385
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Pageboy, or
The Two Gentlemen of Verona: The Movie / Amy Villajero 394
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Philadelphia, or War / Jody Greene 404
Venus and Adonis421
Venus and Adonis Freeze / Andrew Nicholls 414
The Winter's Tale
Lost, or "Exit, Pursued by a Bear": Causing Queer Children on Shakespeare's TV / Kathryn Bond Stockton 421
References 429
Further Reading 449
Contributors 467
Index 477
