Shakespeare and Ecological Crisis

Carolyn Sale is Associate Professor in the Department of English, Film and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. Her work on early modern writers and the law includes The Law in Shakespeare (2007), Shakespeare and the Law (2008), The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500–1610 (2010), Shakespeare and Judgment (2016), The Oxford Handbook of English Law and Literature, 1500–1700 (2017) and Shakespeare and Wisdom: Ecological, Ecumenical, and Ethical Horizons (2024). She also co-edited Shakespeare’s Virtuous Theatre: Power, Capacity and the Good (2023) with Julia Reinhard Lupton and Kent Lehnhof. Rebecca Lemon is Professor of English, Comparative Literature and History at the University of Southern California. Her award-winning writing on Shakespeare, law, political philosophy and the history of medicine includes Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England (2018), Shakespeare’s King Richard III: Language and Writing (2018) and Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Early Modern England (2006).

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Visionary Shakespeare: The Past, Present and Future of Ecological CrisisCarolyn SalePart I: States of Emergency1. Climate Emergency: Disastrous Storms in ShakespeareRebecca Lemon2. Tyranny and Time: Ecological Crisis and Narrative Alternatives in The Winter’s TalePeter Parolin3. Distracting Cannon Fire and ‘Distracted’ Ophelia: Recovering the Modern Environmental Politics of Hamlet through Sound, Affect and MemoryRandall MartinPart II: Shakespeare & / Apocalypse4. Agriculture, Food Security and the Plantationocene in Shakespeare’s CoriolanusAshley Sarpong5. Eco-Apocalyptic Aesthetics in Peter Brook’s King LearDavid W. Hartwig6. Post-pandemic Shakespeare and Radical Interconnectedness in HBO’s Station ElevenKatarzyna BurzyńskaPart III: Teaching to the Crisis7. ‘Becoming with’/and Shakespeare in the ClassroomJennifer Munroe8. BIOphelia: Sowing Seeds for Sustainable Ecological Futures through Decolonial Practice-Based ResearchTheo BlackPart IV: Rewilded Futures9. A Shakespeare Reconciliation Garden: Indigenous Storywork Listening, Pericles and The Winter’s TaleMelissa Emerson Walter and Swelchalot Shirley Anne Hardman10. Bear Witness: Endangered Eagles in Cymbeline and the Biocultural GapElizabeth Freestone11. ‘O Monstrous! O Strange’: Queer Ecology in the Woods of A Midsummer Night’s DreamSaraya Haddad12. Weather-Makers and the Futures of the Sun: Elemental Ariel and Humanity’s Imaginative HorizonsCarolyn Sale and Amy L. TignerAfterword: Reading Shakespeare, Reading Climate ChangeGenevieve GuentherNotes on ContributorsSelect Bibliography