Introduction

Authors

  • Maurizio Calbi University of Salerno
  • Stephen O'Neill National University of Ireland Maynooth

Abstract

In their introductory essay, Maurizio Calbi and Stephen O'Neill explore the interrelations between social media and Shakespeare(s), providing a theoretical consideration of both categories that ultimately moves toward an argument for their rhizomatic intersections. Shakespeare increasingly "becomes" through social media (in a Deleuzian sense), and indeed, forms of social media are rearticulated through Shakespeare. The essay also guides the reader through this special issue in which the contributors variously map, define, scrutinize, and challenge social media, Shakespeare and their uncanny convergences.

Author Biographies

Maurizio Calbi, University of Salerno

Maurizio Calbi is Professor of English at the University of Salerno (Italy). He has published on Shakespeare, the representations of the body in early modern culture, postcolonial literature, and postcolonial rewriting of Shakespeare. His most recent book is Spectral Shakespeares: Media Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave 2013; paperback 2016). He is currently working on Shakespeare in the French nouvelle vague, and preparing a monograph on "interstitial Shakespeare," which uses examples of adaptations in different media to address current debates about the notion of "global Shakespeare."

Stephen O'Neill, National University of Ireland Maynooth

Stephen O'Neill is Lecturer in the Department of English at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. His research focuses on Shakespearean drama and adaptation, especially in new media. He is the author of Shakespeare and YouTube: New Media Forms of the Bard (Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare 2014), Staging Ireland: Representations in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama (Four Courts 2007); and essays in Celtic Shakespeare: The Bard and his Borderers (Ashgate 2013), The Shakespearean International Yearbook (Ashgate 2014), and Borrowers and Lenders (http://www.borrowers.uga.edu/1281/show). He is editor of Shakespeare and the Irish Writer (UCD Press 2012). His is currently working on Shakespeare memes and on editing Broadcast Your Shakespeare, a forthcoming essay collection in the Arden Shakespeare series.

Issue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2016. Image: A lego figure in a dark outfit and hat smiles.

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Published

2016-05-01

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1 (2016): Shakespeare and Social Media

Section

Articles