The essays in this volume rethink Much Ado About Nothing from the standpoint of the New Awareness. Scholars today are by necessity both the products and the producers of this awareness. Moreover, the essays in this collection touch upon problems that are germane to the political climate today and similar to the concerns reflected in this play. Three essays discuss epistemology and determining real information from its simulation. Other essays concern issues that are central to the #MeToo Movement, including rape culture and the credibility of women. Aside from the immediate textual and historical context, other essays address issues of race and gender in adaptations and theatrical productions, especially in young-adult prose adaptations of the play and in theater's practice of inclusive and race-conscious staging.
W. Reginald Rampone, Jr. is associate professor of English at South Carolina State University. Nicholas Utzig is lecturer at Sarah Lawrence College.
Introduction: W. Reginald Rampone, Jr. and Nicholas Utzig Section I: Epistemology and Truth in Much Ado About Nothing Chapter 1: "Change Slander to Remorse": Acknowledgement and (Self)-Recognition in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Selima Lejri Chapter 2: "Deceivers Ever": Much Ado About Nothing and Cultures of Deception, Kathleen Kalpin Smith Section II: Present and Past in Much Ado About Nothing Chapter 3: The Threat of the Stranger in Much Ado About Nothing, Stephanie Chamberlain Chapter 4: "In Messina Here": Shakespeare's Use of Setting in Much Ado About Nothing, Philip Goldfarb Styrt Chapter 5: "A Bird of My Tongue is Better than a Beast of Yours": Metamorphosis and Moral Relativism in Much Ado About Nothing and #MeToo, Christine Hoffman Section III: Crime and Punishment in Much Ado About Nothing Chapter 6: Punishing Wrongdoers and Other Things I Didn't Know I Needed From A Romantic Comedy: Messina as a Post-Conflict Society, Kelsey Ridge Chapter 7: Slut Shaming, Revenge Porn, and the Making of Meaning by Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing, Anthony Guy Patricia Chapter 8: Margaret's Complicated Consent: An Overlooked Victim in Much Ado About Nothing, Jolene Mendel Section IV: Shakespearean Adaptation and Performance Chapter 9: "Till all graces be in one woman": Archetypes of Womanhood in YA Adaptations of Much Ado About Nothing, Anna Graham Chapter 10: Much Ado About Nothing, Performance and Cultural Identity, Jami Rogers Chapter 11: Teaching "Kill Claudio" in the Age of Streamed Shakespeare, Joseph Sullivan Chapter 12: "Almost the copy of my child that's dead": Ghosts and Adaptation in Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, Jim Casey Afterword About the Authors
