Shakespearean Charity and the Perils of Redemptive Performance

This Element examines recent documentaries depicting marginalized youth who are ostensibly redeemed by their encounters with Shakespeare.

Todd Landon Barnes (Author)

9781108743167, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 April 2020

112 pages, 9 b/w illus.
12.7 x 18 x 0.8 cm, 0.12 kg

'… slim and sharp-edged … At under 100 pages, its short format is unusual and welcome.' William N. West, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500–1900

This Element examines recent documentaries depicting marginalized youth who are ostensibly redeemed by their encounters with Shakespeare. These films emerge in response to four historical and discursive developments: the rise of reality television and its emphasis on the emotional transformation of the private individual; the concomitant rise of neoliberalism and emotional capitalism, which employ therapeutic discourses to individualize social inequality; the privatization of public education and the rise of so-called “no-excuses” or “new paternalist” charter schools; and the emergence of new modes of address infusing evangelical conversion narratives with a therapeutic self-help ethos.

Introduction
1. Genre trouble: between fiction, documentary and reality television
2. Pedagogy under emotional capitalism
3. Self-help culture and the new paternalism
4. Character education and spiritual-therapeutic conversion narratives
Conclusion

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG], Literature: history & criticism [DS]