Publications

The University of Chicago Press recently published Shakespeare and the Law: A Conversation among Disciplines and Professions, edited by Bradin Cormack, Professor in English Language and Literature, Richard Strier, the Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor in English Language and Literature, and Martha C. Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics. The book's four sections examine the relationship between law and literature, Shakespeare's awareness of the law, his attitude toward law, and how law enters into politics and community both in the plays and in our world. It closes with a transcript of a 2009 conference that inspired the collection, wherein Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Judge Richard Posner, Nussbaum, and Strier discuss the legal themes in Hamlet, Measure for Measure, and As You Like It. To read excerpts from the conference and learn more about Shakespeare and the Law, visit The University of Chicago Magazine.

David Nirenberg, the Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Professor of History and Social Thought, wrote an article titled "Anti-Judaism as Critical Theory" for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Nirenberg, who studies "the ways in which Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures constitute themselves by inter-relating with or thinking about each other," echoes Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism when he asks in the article, "How and why do ideas about Jews and Judaism become convincing explanations for the state of the world in a given time and place?" Utilizing theorists like Arendt, Marx, and Hegel, Nirenberg traces the history of thinking about Judaism and how that thought has shaped our view of the world.

Read the full article here, and find his latest book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition here.