Carolyn Sale – författare

In new readings of Shakespeare’s plays and accounts of experimental public-facing uses of his work, contributors to Shakespeare and Ecological Crisis open up the urgent political stakes for Shakespearean drama in the face of a multifaceted ecological crisis not limited to human-caused climate breakdown. They demonstrate the diagnostic power and enduring poetic visions of Shakespeare’s drama for understanding the causes of these crises and articulating possible solutions to humanity’s abuses of human and non-human nature. Historicist, presentist and future-oriented, the essays wrestle with the problems of gendered and racialised cosmologies and the destructiveness of economic ideologies and practices that fail to sustain life on Earth. Oriented to issues such as colonialism, food production, hunger, new technologies and Indigenous ways of knowing and being, the discussions show how the ecological thinking of Shakespeare’s plays imagine not-yet-realised transformations of humanity’s relationship to non-human nature and the promise of new human socialities.

Presents Shakespeare's theatre as a powerful forum for shaping our capacity for virtueOpens virtue ethics to new political and ecological stakes by building bridges between ancient philosophy, contemporary virtue ethics and Shakespeare's dramaDemonstrates the semantic, pragmatic, and phenomenological range of virtue in Shakespeare's plays and dramatic practice by emphasizing the embodied, performative and deliberative dimensions of virtueOffers new readings of virtues such as courage, friendship, constancy, kindness and judgment, as staged in Shakespeare's dramaThis collection of essays explores how the Shakespearean drama enacts ancient virtues and conceptualises new ones in complex fictional scenarios that test virtues for their continuing value. Contributors approach the virtues as a source of imaginative, affective and intellectual nourishment and consider how Shakespeare's art increases our capacity for new pursuits of the good. Examining Shakespeare's virtuous theatre in tragic, comic and romance modes and from ethical, theatrical and political perspectives, this volume establishes virtue as a framework for a socially, environmentally and spiritually renewed literary criticism. Contributors balance historical depth and philosophical insight with the art of close reading as they contemplate the dynamic field of virtue embodied, responsive, energetic and dynamic as it ebbs and flows across time, among multiple wisdom traditions, and in the entangled lives and troubled circumstances of Shakespeare's characters.

This collection of essays explores how the Shakespearean drama enacts ancient virtues and conceptualises new ones in complex fictional scenarios that test virtues for their continuing value. Contributors approach the virtues as a source of imaginative, affective and intellectual nourishment and consider how Shakespeare's art increases our capacity for new pursuits of the good. Examining Shakespeare's virtuous theatre in tragic, comic and romance modes and from ethical, theatrical and political perspectives, this volume establishes virtue as a framework for a socially, environmentally and spiritually renewed literary criticism. Contributors balance historical depth and philosophical insight with the art of close reading as they contemplate the dynamic field of virtue embodied, responsive, energetic and dynamic as it ebbs and flows across time, among multiple wisdom traditions, and in the entangled lives and troubled circumstances of Shakespeare's characters.