Sandra Logan – författare

Engaging with a range of events-historical moments, theatrical performances, public presentations, and courtly intrigues - and the texts that record them, this book explores representational practice as a component of Elizabethan political culture. Considering the inscriptive production of mediated, indirect experience as an authorial challenge to the value of the immediate, direct experience of events, and conversely, recognizing the multi-valent impact of theatrical performance and performativity as a reinvigoration of the immediate, this study traces the emergence of 'realness' as a textual effect and a mode of political intervention. This interactive, refractive nexus of experience and inscription comprises what Sandra Logan calls the 'text/event'. The four primary foci of this investigation - the 1558 coronation entry; the 1575 entertainments at Kenilworth; the 1590s dramatizations of the reign of Richard II; and the Essex trial of 1601 - serve as exempla of four moments in the reign of Elizabeth I which suggest an increasingly complex interaction between events and texts developing in the last half of the sixteenth century. Logan argues that, in representing England's recent and distant past, a wide range of social subjects engaged in a struggle for intellectual credibility and social viability, and in the process generated a contingent public sphere within which history, framed as a coherent narrative shaped by causal relationships, was brought to bear on the concerns of the Elizabethan present and future. Assessing how these chronicles, short prose histories, and historical dramas each made use of the materials and techniques of the others, blurring the distinctions between historiography and poetry, as well as between past and present, Logan considers the conjunctions between the development of new genres and perceptions about inscription and experience, and changing socioeconomic institutions and practices.

This book examines Shakespeare’s depiction of foreign queens as he uses them to reveal and embody tensions within early modern English politics. Linking early modern and contemporary political theory and concerns through the concepts of fragmented identity, hospitality, citizenship, and banishment, Sandra Logan takes up a set of questions not widely addressed by scholars of early modern queenship. How does Shakespeare’s representation of these queens challenge the opposition between friend and enemy that ostensibly defines the context of the political? And how do these queens expose the abusive potential of the sovereign? Focusing on Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and Margaret in the first history tetralogy, Logan considers them as means for exploring conditions of vulnerability, alienation, and exclusion common to subjects of every social position, exposing the sovereign himself as the true enemy of the state.

This book examines Shakespeare’s depiction of foreign queens as he uses them to reveal and embody tensions within early modern English politics. Linking early modern and contemporary political theory and concerns through the concepts of fragmented identity, hospitality, citizenship, and banishment, Sandra Logan takes up a set of questions not widely addressed by scholars of early modern queenship. How does Shakespeare’s representation of these queens challenge the opposition between friend and enemy that ostensibly defines the context of the political? And how do these queens expose the abusive potential of the sovereign? Focusing on Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, Hermione in The Winter’s Tale, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and Margaret in the first history tetralogy, Logan considers them as means for exploring conditions of vulnerability, alienation, and exclusion common to subjects of every social position, exposing the sovereign himself as the true enemy of the state.

Engaging with a range of events-historical moments, theatrical performances, public presentations, and courtly intrigues - and the texts that record them, this book explores representational practice as a component of Elizabethan political culture. Considering the inscriptive production of mediated, indirect experience as an authorial challenge to the value of the immediate, direct experience of events, and conversely, recognizing the multi-valent impact of theatrical performance and performativity as a reinvigoration of the immediate, this study traces the emergence of 'realness' as a textual effect and a mode of political intervention. This interactive, refractive nexus of experience and inscription comprises what Sandra Logan calls the 'text/event'. The four primary foci of this investigation - the 1558 coronation entry; the 1575 entertainments at Kenilworth; the 1590s dramatizations of the reign of Richard II; and the Essex trial of 1601 - serve as exempla of four moments in the reign of Elizabeth I which suggest an increasingly complex interaction between events and texts developing in the last half of the sixteenth century. Logan argues that, in representing England's recent and distant past, a wide range of social subjects engaged in a struggle for intellectual credibility and social viability, and in the process generated a contingent public sphere within which history, framed as a coherent narrative shaped by causal relationships, was brought to bear on the concerns of the Elizabethan present and future. Assessing how these chronicles, short prose histories, and historical dramas each made use of the materials and techniques of the others, blurring the distinctions between historiography and poetry, as well as between past and present, Logan considers the conjunctions between the development of new genres and perceptions about inscription and experience, and changing socioeconomic institutions and practices.

Sandra Logan’s Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology provides a clear, nuanced explication of modern theories of political theology and the early modern theories that ground them. This accessible overview shows how these theories have contributed to new ways of interpreting Shakespeare’s works. Logan demonstrates the centrality of political theology to our understanding of sovereign authority across history, tracing debates about political theology and modern sovereignty through Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida, and Agamben, alongside its early modern aspects through Luther, Calvin, de Vitoria, Smith, and Bodin.She then turns to Shakespearean scholarship to reveal how scholars have employed those theories to show that Shakespeare himself drew on and critiqued concepts of political theology through his plays, such as sovereign authority and impunity, sovereign/subject relations, questions of obedience and resistance, and conditions of exceptionalism and banishment. Plays covered include Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and The Winter’s Tale. Logan also offers a bold new interpretation of Shakespeare’s Richard II that is rooted in political-theological theories of resistance to tyranny and Benjamin’s concept of messianic history. Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology serves as a powerful tool for understanding theories of political theology and richly demonstrates how such theories have been taken up by the field.

Sandra Logan's Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology provides a clear, nuanced explication of modern theories of political theology and the early modern theories that ground them. This accessible overview shows how these theories have contributed to new ways of interpreting Shakespeare's works. Logan demonstrates the centrality of political theology to our understanding of sovereign authority across history, tracing debates about political theology and modern sovereignty through Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida, and Agamben, alongside its early modern aspects through Luther, Calvin, de Vitoria, Smith, and Bodin. She then turns to Shakespearean scholarship to reveal how scholars have employed those theories to show that Shakespeare himself drew on and critiqued concepts of political theology through his plays, such as sovereign authority and impunity, sovereign/subject relations, questions of obedience and resistance, and conditions of exceptionalism and banishment. Plays covered include Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. Logan also offers a bold new interpretation of Shakespeare's Richard II that is rooted in political-theological theories of resistance to tyranny and Benjamin's concept of messianic history. Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology serves as a powerful tool for understanding theories of political theology and richly demonstrates how such theories have been taken up by the field.

Sandra Logan's Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology provides a clear, nuanced explication of modern theories of political theology and the early modern theories that ground them. This accessible overview shows how these theories have contributed to new ways of interpreting Shakespeare's works. Logan demonstrates the centrality of political theology to our understanding of sovereign authority across history, tracing debates about political theology and modern sovereignty through Schmitt, Benjamin, Derrida, and Agamben, alongside its early modern aspects through Luther, Calvin, de Vitoria, Smith, and Bodin. She then turns to Shakespearean scholarship to reveal how scholars have employed those theories to show that Shakespeare himself drew on and critiqued concepts of political theology through his plays, such as sovereign authority and impunity, sovereign/subject relations, questions of obedience and resistance, and conditions of exceptionalism and banishment. Plays covered include Hamlet, Macbeth, As You Like It, Measure for Measure, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. Logan also offers a bold new interpretation of Shakespeare's Richard II that is rooted in political-theological theories of resistance to tyranny and Benjamin's concept of messianic history. Shakespeare and Theories of Political Theology serves as a powerful tool for understanding theories of political theology and richly demonstrates how such theories have been taken up by the field.

Engaging with a range of events-historical moments, theatrical performances, public presentations, and courtly intrigues - and the texts that record them, this book explores representational practice as a component of Elizabethan political culture. Considering the inscriptive production of mediated, indirect experience as an authorial challenge to the value of the immediate, direct experience of events, and conversely, recognizing the multi-valent impact of theatrical performance and performativity as a reinvigoration of the immediate, this study traces the emergence of ''realness'' as a textual effect and a mode of political intervention. This interactive, refractive nexus of experience and inscription comprises what Sandra Logan calls the ''text/event''. The four primary foci of this investigation - the 1558 coronation entry; the 1575 entertainments at Kenilworth; the 1590s dramatizations of the reign of Richard II; and the Essex trial of 1601 - serve as exempla of four moments in the reign of Elizabeth I which suggest an increasingly complex interaction between events and texts developing in the last half of the sixteenth century. Logan argues that, in representing England''s recent and distant past, a wide range of social subjects engaged in a struggle for intellectual credibility and social viability, and in the process generated a contingent public sphere within which history, framed as a coherent narrative shaped by causal relationships, was brought to bear on the concerns of the Elizabethan present and future. Assessing how these chronicles, short prose histories, and historical dramas each made use of the materials and techniques of the others, blurring the distinctions between historiography and poetry, as well as between past and present, Logan considers the conjunctions between the development of new genres and perceptions about inscription and experience, and changing socioeconomic institutions and practices.