ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

04/23/2026

Happy birthday Shakespeare! Who wants a triple-serving of Titus to celebrate? Ayanna Thompson has three new pieces on Throughlines unpacking the deep questions that arise when you wipe away all the blood in Shakespeare's goriest tragedy.
https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/indecourm-and-empire-in-titus-andronicus

04/22/2026

Seven new resources from Cassander L. Smith on race, protest, and respectability politics in early American and early African American literature.

You'll want to check out this annotated syllabus on the Black protest tradition that opens with a question most students think they can answer but can’t: is there really a right way to protest? Smith traces the answer from Kendrick Lamar back to Olaudah Equiano, through Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Toni Morrison.

Also included: two graduate syllabi on race in early America and premodern critical race studies, a classroom activity where students remix Phillis Wheatley’s poetry to address current events, and video lectures that use black-ish as an entry point to 18th-century literature.

All free. As always.

Smith, Cassander L. "Black protest tradition in early African American literature." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/black-protest-tradition-in-early-african-american-literature. [Date accessed].

04/17/2026

New and FREE to read online—'What Country Friends, Is This?' Shakespeare and the Staging of Exile. In their intro, editors Stephanie E. Chamberlain, Vanessa I. Corredera, and James M. Sutton address our contemporary age of exile and what Shakespeare has to do with it.

An exploration of displacement and exile in Shakespeare’s plays and our world today.

04/16/2026

Need weekend plans? Emma Smith will be delivering the annual
Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture "Shakespeare and Immigration" this Saturday 4/18.

Join us for the Folger Institute's annual Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture with Dr. Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University.

04/09/2026

Professor Cassander L. Smith offers an important reading the double-edged sword of respectability politics in the lives of Black Americans. She explores how this respectability is centuries old and can be found in the first memoir written in English by a Black African, Olaudah Equiano, written in 1789.
Find her full talk on Throughlines.
https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/olaudah-equiano-and-the-mirage-of-respectability-politics

04/02/2026

As a curator, Andrea Achi learned that accepting museums don’t always have all the facts can actually create a better space for learning. Good curation is about creating an environment that invites questions, not just answers.

https://www.throughlines.org/suite-content/curating-from-the-lens-of-critical-race-studies

04/02/2026

Spanish imperialism, Turk plays, and New World encounters—developing racial constructs on the early modern stage. Check out part 3 of Noémie Ndiaye's Race in Early Modern Drama syllabus. More to come in the next few days, but you can check out the whole syllabus for free right now at throughlines.org.

04/01/2026

Shakespeare and the Senses by Holly Dugan is also out this week! This book offers a fascinating new way to think about Shakespeare—not just as literature, but as a lived, sensory experience. What did early audiences hear, smell, and feel in the theatre? How did those sensations shape meaning?

Written to be accessible and engaging, it’s ideal for students, teachers, and anyone curious about how the past was experienced through the senses.

Available to read online for free or you can grab your own print copy: https://asu.pressbooks.pub/shakespeare-and-the-senses/

04/01/2026

We are thrilled to announce the publication of “What Country, Friends, Is This?”: Shakespeare and the Staging of Exile—a new edited collection exploring how Shakespeare’s works engage with exile across time, place, and performance.

Edited by Stephanie E. Chamberlain, Vanessa I. Corredera, and James M. Sutton this volume brings together 14 essays from scholars across career stages to examine exile as lived experience, political condition, and cultural performance—from early modern England to contemporary global contexts. At a moment when displacement continues to shape lives worldwide, this book asks what Shakespeare can still teach us about belonging, identity, and the meaning of home.

Read it now in open access format for free or buy your print copy today!

https://asu.pressbooks.pub/what-country-friends-is-this-shakespeare-and-the-staging-of-exile/

03/31/2026

Many congratulations to Amrita Dhar and Amrita Sen, winners of the SAA Innovative Article Award for their piece in Borrowers and Lenders, "Two Nations, Both Alike: Shakespeare in Bengal." You can read the article for free on the B&L site: https://doi.org/10.18274/659cc926