A01=Nora J. Williams
Author_Nora J. Williams
canon
Category=DSBD
Category=DSG
dramaturgy
Early modern drama
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
performance
sexual violence
William Shakespeare
Product details
- ISBN 9781399502276
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 31 May 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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If misogyny is a systemic problem, then in order to understand its influence on canonical works like Shakespeare’s, those works must be investigated at their systems level – in other words, at the level of their dramaturgies. This landmark study arises from an eight-year practice-as-research (PaR) investigation of sexual violence and rape culture through Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Moving between analytical and critical-reflective voices, and prioritising knowledge arising from and questions generated by the author’s embodied investment in this PaR work, Canonical Misogyny focuses on dramaturgy as a site of ideology and meaning-making. It seeks to address the ways in which contemporary theatre allows producers of Shakespeare to represent gendered violence in unethical and irresponsible ways. It also demonstrates how failures to make meaningful dramaturgical interventions in early modern plays result in the tacit (or even explicit) glorifying and/or trivialising of their problematic approaches to consent and agency, which intersects with questions of race, gender, sexuality and class.
Nora J. Williams is the Associate Dean for Access and Participation at BIMM University. Her work has previously been published in journals such as Shakespeare Bulletin and PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, as well as several edited collections. She is the co-host of Not Another Shakespeare Podcast! and the Notes section editor for Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation.
