Joseph Loewenstein, Washington University professor and a specialist in Renaissance Literature and Cuture, unearths the constitutional politics of Shakespearean comedy and considers Shakespeare’s meditation on publicness in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He says, "For all their remarkable achievements in fine arts, literature, astronomy, philology, mathematics, and engineering, Renaissance Europeans had few successes as political theorists. Or so we are told. But if we look in odd places—in the comedies of Shakespeare, and in one or two of his tragedies—we may find that a few concepts crucial to modern political theory receive sustained attention. This lecture will consider two of them briefly, and one at length."

Sponsored by U-M Library and the English Department, in conjunction with the exhibit Shakespeare on Page and Stage: A Celebration http://www.lib.umich.edu/events/shakespeare-page-and-stage-celebration and the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.