Shakespeare is Not Pie: Contingencies of Labour, Marginalisation, and Early Modern Studies

Abstract

In the United States, zero-sum economic models (‘scarcity mindset’ often represented by the metaphor of pie) are being deployed in service to neoliberal ideas about humanist curricula. Backed by the insistence that dismantling the canon is the only way to enact strong DEIJ initiatives, these models are systemically attacking the study of Shakespeare in higher education. The echoes of these problems are strongly evident in the famously bad academic hiring market. Several key studies about the labour market in recent years render the turn towards contingency clear and quantifiable in English, History, and Theatre Departments, and clarify how this turn is unduly impacting Shakespeareans. Institutions say they are eliminating Shakespeare to make curricular space for marginalised voices, but these claims don’t hold up to scrutiny in light of systemic attacks on DEIJ work. This paper underlines how critical the studies of race and gender are to Shakespeare studies as a field; early modernists have been doing the labour of DEIJ for a long time, and thus are uniquely equipped to serve social justice initiatives. Accordingly, Shakespeareans and the work we do are vital to the health of the humanities as a whole.