Merchant of Venice: The State of Play

M. Lindsay Kaplan is Professor of English at Georgetown University, USA, where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, early modern drama, race and religion. She is the author of Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity (2019), editor of The Merchant of Venice: Texts and Contexts (2002) and has published essays on The Merchant of Venice in Shakespeare Quarterly, Shakespeare Studies, and various volumes of collected essays.

• List of Illustrations Notes on ContributorsSeries PrefaceIntroduction:Recent Trends in Merchant of Venice Criticism, M. Lindsay Kaplan (Georgetown University, US)Chapter One: ‘Lend it rather to thine enemy’: Accentuating Difference in The Merchant of Venice, Miriam Gilbert(University of Iowa, US) Chapter Two: Dangerous Border Crossings: Nicolas Stemann's Merchant in Munich,Benjamin Fowler (University of Sussex, UK)Chapter Three: Thomas Jordan's 'The Forfeiture', A Mercantilist Rewriting of Shakespeare, Katherine Romack (University of West Florida, US)Chapter Four: Jessica, Women’s Activism, and Maurice Schwartz’s 1947 Shayloks Tochter,Sara Coodin (University of Oklahoma, US)Chapter Five:'Wooly Breeders': Animal Generation and Economies of Knowledge in The Merchant of Venice, James Kearney (University of California, Santa Barbara, US)Chapter Six:'The means whereby I live’: Deep Play in The Merchant of Venice Jeanette Nguyen Tran, (Drake University, US)Chapter Seven:‘Qualities of Breeding’: Race, Class, and Conduct in The Merchant of Venice,Patricia Akhimie (Rutgers University – Newark, US)Chapter Eight:Jessica, Sarra and Ruth: Three Jewish Women Confronting Shylock, Shaul Bassi, (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy)Chapter Nine:‘Tainted wether of the flock’: Repurposing Fiorentino’s Doting Godfather in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice,” Thomas Cartelli, Professor of English & Film Studies (Muhlenberg College, US) Chapter Ten:'Epistemology of the Early Modern Closet, or, The Merchant of Venice Unlockt,'A. Eliza Greenstadt, (Portland State University, US)NotesReferencesIndex

This new collection responds to [the] political climate by exploring topics, such as, performance, adaptation, race, queerness, and the philosophies of risk in relation to the play, bringing the discourse up to date ... [A] diverse selection of papers that update or extend several areas of study in relation to Merchant.