"We don't need Shakespeare, Shakespeare needs us!"

Shakespeare is demanding: There are so many versions, so many interpretations, so many questions. He is always in flux, and this has sometimes made us uncomfortable. Shakespeare scholar Beth Charlebois takes into the history of the Bard - who he was, his motivations, the tumultuous reality of Early Modern England, as well as his (possibly) secret Catholicism (or at least his sacramental worldview). We'll also discuss the pivotal scene from the Winter's Tale and the concept of jealousy in Shakespeare's plays as well as how Art and Shakespeare in particular can truly change lives and reassert our humanity. This is an extremely rich episode and is going to give you so much to think about! So many thanks to Beth for coming on the show.

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Beth Charlebois is Professor of English, Emerita at St. Mary's College of Maryland where she taught Shakespeare and Renaissance drama and literature for 23 years. She received her BA and MA from Georgetown University and her Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Her early scholarly work was largely devoted to examining the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries through an historical lens, but for decades she has been most keenly interested in how performance shapes the meaning and interpretation of the plays and how teaching Shakespeare with performance at the forefront encourages students to understand the plays as living and breathing works of art that can take on new meanings on the stage that speak to our own times.

Wanting to broaden her horizons and the ways that Shakespeare can be made relevant today, she devoted three sabbatical projects teaching Shakespeare in prison as Scholar in Residence for St. Louis based Prison Performing Arts.

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Find Katie on Substack: https://bornofwonder.substack.com/

Find Katie online: www.katiemarquette.com