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James S. Shapiro

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James S. Shapiro
Born1955 (age 68–69)
Brooklyn,New York,U.S.
Alma materColumbia University
University of Chicago
OccupationShakespeare scholar
EmployerColumbia University
AwardsSamuel Johnson Prize
James Shapiro's voice
from the BBC programmeFront Row,March 26, 2010.[1]

James S. Shapiro(born 1955) is Professor ofEnglishandComparative LiteratureatColumbia Universitywho specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teachingShakespeareand other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare andElizabethan culture.

Life[edit]

Shapiro was born and raised inBrooklyn,New York, where he attendedMidwood High School.He obtained hisB.A.at Columbia University in 1977,Master's degreein 1978 andPh.D.atUniversity of Chicagoin 1982. After teaching atDartmouth CollegeandGoucher College,Shapiro joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1985. He taught as aFulbrightlecturer atBar-Ilan UniversityandTel Aviv University(1988–1989) and served as theSamuel WanamakerFellow atShakespeare's Globein London (1998).

Shapiro has received awards from theNational Endowment for the Humanities,The Huntington Library,and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for his publications and academic activities. He has written for numerous periodicals, includingThe Chronicle of Higher Education,The New York Times Book Review,theFinancial Times,andThe Daily Telegraph.In 2006, he was named aJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial FoundationFellow as well as a Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at theNew York Public Library.

Shapiro won the 2006Samuel Johnson Prizeas well as the 2006 Theatre Book Prize for his work1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare,which Robert Nye described as "powerful" inLiterary Review,set apart by Shapiro's precise and engrossing commentary on the sea-change in Shakespeare's language during the year 1599.[2][3]In 2023, the book won theBaillie Gifford Prize's "Winner of Winners" award.[4][5]

He also won the 2011 George Freedley Memorial Award, given by the Theatre Library Association, for his study of theShakespeare authorship question,Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?,which has been described as the "definitive treatment" debunking theOxfordian theory.[6]The same year Shapiro was inducted into theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.Elizabeth Winkler inShakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresiesdescribes Shapiro's 2011 correspondence with Supreme Court justiceJohn Paul Stevens,a proponent of the Oxfordian theory, about the authorship question.[7]Shapiro's book,The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606,published in hardback in 2015, was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Biography[8]as well as the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.[9]Shapiro presented a three-part series onBBC FourcalledThe King & the Playwright: A Jacobean Historyabout Shakespeare, KingJames VI and Iand theJacobean era.[10]

He is married, has a son, and lives in New York City.[11]

Works[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare.New York:Columbia University Press,1991.ISBN0-231-07540-5
  • The Columbia History of British Poetryas associate editor with Carl Woodring. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.ISBN0-231-07838-2
  • The Columbia Anthology of British PoetryEdited with Carl Woodring. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.ISBN0-231-10180-5
  • Shakespeare and the Jews.New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.ISBN0-231-10344-1
  • Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most FamousPassion Play.New York:Pantheon Books,2000.ISBN0-375-40926-2
  • 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.London:Faber and Faber,2005.ISBN0-571-21480-0
  • Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?New York:Simon & Schuster;London: Faber and Faber, 2010.ISBN1-4165-4162-4
  • Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution Until Now,ed. James Shapiro, with a foreword byBill Clinton.New York: Library of America, 2014.ISBN1598532952
  • The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606.New York:Simon & Schuster,October 6, 2015.ISBN1416541640
  • Shakespeare in a Divided America.New York:Penguin Press;London: Faber & Faber; March, 2020.ISBN0525522298

References[edit]

  1. ^"James Shapiro".Front Row.March 26, 2010. BBC Radio 4.RetrievedJanuary 18,2014.
  2. ^'Shakespeare' Wins Samuel Johnson Prize[dead link],Washington Post/AP,June 14, 2006.
  3. ^Nye, Robert (July 2005)."'Shakespeare's Annus Mirabilis ".Archivedfrom the original on August 7, 2020.
  4. ^Shaffi, Sarah (27 April 2023)."James Shapiro wins Baillie Gifford anniversary prize with 'extraordinary' Shakespeare biography 1599".The Guardian.Retrieved30 April2023.
  5. ^"James Shapiro's 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare wins…".Baillie Gifford Prize.Retrieved30 April2023.
  6. ^EsquirecolumnistStephen Marcheat'Wouldn’t It Be Cool if Shakespeare Wasn’t Shakespeare?,'inThe New York Times Magazine,21 October 2011.p.2: "If you want to read the definitive treatment, there is James Shapiro’s more recentContested Will,although that book is nearly as absurd as its subject, because using a brain like Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight. "
  7. ^Winkler, Elizabeth (May 2023).Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies.Simon & Schuster. p. 326.ISBN9781982171261.
  8. ^Cain, Sian (2016-08-15)."James Tait Black awards 2016: James Shapiro and Benjamin Markovits win".The Guardian.Retrieved2024-06-22.
  9. ^Peterson, Tyler (March 2, 2016)."James Shapiro Wins 9th Annual Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography".Archivedfrom the original on September 14, 2018.
  10. ^"The King & the Playwright: A Jacobean History".BBC.RetrievedApril 26,2012.
  11. ^Chautauqua Institution:James ShapiroArchivedJanuary 18, 2006, at theWayback Machine,July 15, 2002.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_S._Shapiro&oldid=1231473756"