Performance Studies alum Edna Nashon (Ph.D. '97) recently published her latest book "Wrestling with Shylock: Jewish Responses to The Merchant of Venice" through Cambridge University Press.
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice occupies a unique place in world culture. As the fictional, albeit iconic, character of Shylock has been interpreted as exotic outsider, social pariah, melodramatic villain and tragic victim, the play, which has been performed and read in dozens of languages, has served as a lens for examining ideas and images of the Jew at various historical moments. In the last two hundred years, many of the play's stage interpreters, spectators, readers and adapters have themselves been Jews, whose responses are often embedded in literary, theatrical and musical works. This volume examines the ever-expanding body of Jewish responses to Shakespeare's most Jewishly relevant play.
Edna Nahshon is professor of Theater and Drama at The Jewish Theological Seminary. Most recently she curated the exhibition "New York's Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway" for the Museum of the City of New York (March 7-August 14,2016). The exhibition was accompanied by a book of the same title, edited by Dr. Nahshon, published by Columbia University Press. In 2013 she served as producer and dramaturg of JTS's milestone production Bratslav-Beethoven-Bratslav, directed by Yossi Yizraely.