Shakespeare After Democracy―Shakespeare in the Age of New Authoritarianism
A special issue of Humanities (ISSN 2076-0787). This special issue belongs to the section "Literature in the Humanities".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2026 | Viewed by 231
Special Issue Editor
Interests: Shakespeare and early modern literature; Shakespeare in performance and adaptation; literature and politics; authoritarianism and democratic backsliding; cultural responses to crisis; leadership and power; media, performance, and political discourse
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Over the past several decades, scholarship on Shakespeare and politics has often operated under an implicit assumption of democratic progress: that authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and overt political repression belonged largely to the past, to be examined retrospectively through Shakespeare’s reception under fascism, communism, colonial rule, or Cold War regimes. At the same time, Shakespeare has repeatedly been mobilized as a cultural resource in moments of political crisis, invoked both to defend democratic values and to legitimize power.
This Special Issue departs from retrospective models by situating Shakespeare within the present context of democratic backsliding and the global rise of new authoritarianisms. Across national contexts, political power is increasingly consolidated through technologically sophisticated means: surveillance infrastructures, algorithmic governance, disinformation campaigns, lawfare, and the performative orchestration of popular consent. These developments mark not a simple return to earlier authoritarian forms, but a reconfiguration of power that is media-saturated, transnational, and deeply attentive to narrative, spectacle, and legitimacy.
The Special Issue asks how Shakespeare functions within this altered political landscape. How are contemporary theatrical productions, film and television adaptations, and other media deployments of Shakespeare processing the erosion of democratic norms? How is Shakespeare used, resisted, or repurposed by political actors, cultural institutions, and audiences operating under conditions of increasing constraint? And what can Shakespeare’s plays—so deeply concerned with authority, obedience, rhetoric, crowd behavior, and the instability of rule—reveal about the mechanisms and affective textures of twenty-first-century authoritarian power?
Contributions that examine Shakespeare as both a political instrument and a diagnostic lens for understanding the present moment are invited. Essays may address stage, screen, and digital Shakespeare; comparative or international contexts; contemporary performance practices; political appropriation and censorship; or the role of Shakespeare in public discourse under conditions of democratic stress. Together, the collection aims to illuminate how Shakespeare is being mobilized, contested, and reimagined in an era when the future of democracy itself can no longer be taken for granted.
Prof. Dr. Marcela Kostihova
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Shakespeare
- democracy
- performance
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