Dr Rory Loughnane, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern Studies in the School of English, has featured on the latest edition of the Ministry of Ideas podcast, entitled Stealing the Canons.
Ministry of Ideas is a podcast dedicated to investigating and illuminating the ideas that shape our society. It is an initiative of the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School.
The latest episode of the podcast deals with literary canons, which have come under fire for perpetuating privilege and exclusion. But some artists – including Shakespeare and Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda – show us how canons can actually build community and democracy.
Rory says: ‘I think our value judgement of the quality of early modern drama is impacted upon by our great familiarity with Shakespeare. Because we know Shakespeare so well, we hold him up as the barometer of that cultural production’.
The podcast episode also features Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and editor of the Norton edition of Shakespeare’s works and the Norton Anthology of English Literature, as well as Oskar Eustis, artistic director of New York City’s Public Theatre and John Ray Proctor, actor and drama professor at Tulane University.
The podcast can be listened to here:
https://www.ministryofideas.org/episodes/canons