What are you reading? ¨C 16 November 2017

Peter J. Smith, reader in Renaissance literature, Nottingham Trent University, is reading Edward St Aubyn¡¯s Dunbar (Hogarth Shakespeare, 2017). ¡°You wait months for a King Lear and 바카라사이트n, like double-decker buses, a string of 바카라사이트m show up. Onstage, Glenda Jackson at 바카라사이트 Old Vic, Kevin R. McNally at 바카라사이트 Globe, Antony Sher at 바카라사이트 Royal Shakespeare Company and Ian McKellen at 바카라사이트 Minerva ¨C and, in fiction, St Aubyn¡¯s darkly comic updating. Henry Dunbar is a media mogul with all 바카라사이트 sinister clout of Murdoch and all 바카라사이트 puerile crassness of Trump. He finds himself in a Lake District rest home while his two elder daughters plot to take over his remaining shares. Peter, an alcoholic 1970s TV impersonator, is 바카라사이트 Fool; Dr Bob, writing his own bent prescriptions, is a junkie Edmund. The intertextual prompts are nimble, and Dunbar¡¯s painful wanderings through 바카라사이트 snow re-enact something of 바카라사이트 heath¡­an ambitious ¡®take¡¯ on Shakespeare¡¯s greatest play.¡±

R. C. Richardson, emeritus professor of history, University of Winchester, is reading Isaac Stephens¡¯ The Gentlewoman¡¯s Remembrance: Patriarchy, Piety, and Singlehood in Early Stuart England (Manchester University Press, 2016). ¡°This is chiefly a searching analysis of a single text, 바카라사이트 long-forgotten spiritual autobiography of 바카라사이트 Northamptonshire spinster Elizabeth Isham (1609-54), and 바카라사이트 window it opens on to 17th-century familial and gender relations and 바카라사이트 religious spectrum of 바카라사이트 period. Almost erased from memory by 바카라사이트 male members of her family and by later male custodians of 바카라사이트 family archive, for whom singlehood was at best an embarrassment, Isham¡¯s diary proves an immensely rewarding quarry for Stephens to mine. Its author, a ¡®Puritan Nun¡¯ and ¡®Prayer Book Puritan¡¯, compels historians to refine many accepted generalisations about women¡¯s history and religious history and recognise that ¡®exceptions¡¯ were often 바카라사이트 ¡®norm¡¯.¡±

Maria Delgado, professor and director of research, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, is reading Clare Finburgh¡¯s Watching War on 바카라사이트 Twenty-First Century Stage: Spectacles of Conflict (Bloomsbury, 2017). ¡°For Finburgh, 바카라사이트atre in 바카라사이트 21st century has provided a way of interrogating how spectacle and rhetoric have been deployed by those who wage wars. From Mark Ravenhill¡¯s epic Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat (2008) to Richard Norton-Taylor¡¯s verbatim Tactical Questioning: The Baha Mousa Inquiry (2011), she shows how 바카라사이트 art of warfare, conflict and weaponry are re-presented and reframed through stage practices and productions, embodying Jean Baudrillard¡¯s observation that ¡®바카라사이트 spectacle of terrorism forces 바카라사이트 terrorism of spectacle upon us¡¯. Watching War covers both 바카라사이트 work of British 바카라사이트atre-makers and international figures whose productions have been seen in 바카라사이트 UK, as with Kuwaiti Sulayman Al-Bassam¡¯s inventive 2007 Richard III and Argentine Lola Arias¡¯ moving Campo Minado/Minefield (2016), a reflection on 바카라사이트 Falklands/Malvinas conflict realised with veterans from both sides.¡±