James S. Shapiro (born 1955) is Professor of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

who specializes in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.

Life

Shapiro was born and raised in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, where he attended

Midwood High School Midwood High School is a high school located at 2839 Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City, administered by the New York City Department of Education. It has an enrollment of 3,938 students. Its H-shaped building, with six Ionic order, Ionic co ...

. He obtained his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

at Columbia University in 1977,

Master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in 1978 and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1982. After teaching at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

and

Goucher College Goucher College ( ') is a private liberal arts college in Towson, Maryland. It was chartered in 1885 by a conference in Baltimore led by namesake John F. Goucher and local leaders of the Methodist Episcopal Church.https://archive.org/details/h ...

, Shapiro joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1985. He taught as a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

lecturer at

Bar-Ilan University Bar-Ilan University (BIU, he, אוניברסיטת בר-אילן, ''Universitat Bar-Ilan'') is a public research university in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel. Established in 1955, Bar Ilan is Israel's second-largest academic i ...

and

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

(1988–1989) and served as the

Samuel Wanamaker Samuel Wanamaker, (born Wattenmacker; June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993) was an American actor and director who moved to the United Kingdom after becoming fearful of being blacklisted in Hollywood due to his communist views. He is credited as ...

Fellow at

Shakespeare's Globe Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in ...

in London (1998). Shapiro has received awards from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

The Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...

, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for his publications and academic activities. He has written for numerous periodicals, including ''

The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to rea ...

'', ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

'', and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

''. In 2006, he was named a

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been ...

Fellow as well as a Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

. Shapiro won the 2006

Samuel Johnson Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

as well as the 2006 Theatre Book Prize for his work ''1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare''. He also won the 2011 George Freedley Memorial Award, given by the Theatre Library Association, for his study of the

Shakespeare authorship question Image:ShakespeareCandidates1.jpg, alt=Portraits of Shakespeare and four proposed alternative authors, Oxford, Bacon, Derby, and Marlowe (clockwise from top left, Shakespeare centre) have each been proposed as the true author. poly 1 1 105 1 1 ...

, ''Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?'', which has been described as the "definitive treatment" debunking the

Oxfordian theory The Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship contends that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, wrote the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. While historians and literary scholars overwhelmingly reject alternative authorship candidates ...

. The same year Shapiro was inducted into the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. His book, "The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606", published in hardback in 2015, was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Biography as well as the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography. Shapiro presented a three-part series on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

called ''The King & the Playwright: A Jacobean History'' about Shakespeare, King

James VI and I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

and the

Jacobean era The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Ca ...

. He is married, has a son, and lives in New York City.

Chautauqua Institution The Chautauqua Institution ( ) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education center and summer resort for adults and youth located on in Chautauqua, New York, northwest of Jamestown in the Western Southern Tier of New York State. Established in 1874, the ...

James Shapiro
, July 15, 2002.

Works

Books

* ''Rival playwrights : Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare.'' New York:

Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...

, 1991. * ''The Columbia history of British poetry'' as associate editor with Carl Woodring. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. * ''The Columbia anthology of British poetry'' Edited with Carl Woodring. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. * ''Shakespeare and the Jews.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. * ''Oberammergau: the troubling story of the world's most famous passion play.'' New York:

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

, 2000. * ''1599 : A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.'' London:

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

, 2005. * ''Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?'' New York:

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

; London: Faber and Faber, 2010. * ''Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution until Now'', ed. James Shapiro, with a foreword by

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

. New York: Library of America, 2014. * ''The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606.'' New York:

, October 6, 2015. *''Shakespeare in a Divided America''. New York:

Penguin Press Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...

; London: Faber & Faber; March, 2020.

References

External links

Columbia University, Faculty Profile: James S. Shapiro

"James Shapiro is the winner of the £30,000 BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2006"

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

. * James Shapiro:
Passion and Prejudice: The Lessons of Oberammergau
', Great Lecture Library (biography; mp3-download available for a fee), July 15, 2002. * James S. Shapiro

''Chronicle of Higher Education'', April 14, 2000. * Robert McCrum

''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', June 5, 2005 (review of ''1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare''). *
Authors: 'A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare'
',

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

radio program ''Talk of the Nation'', October 18, 2005 (audio stream file and excerpt from the first chapter).
"An Interview with James Shapiro"
''The Literateur'' interviews James Shapiro on the subject of Shakespeare conspiracy theories and authorship. *

', Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press, October 27, 2011. ("I don't have a problem with Roland Emmerich drinking the Kool-Aid," says Columbia's Shapiro. "But when he serves it to kids in paper cups, I do.") {{DEFAULTSORT:Shapiro, James S. 1955 births Living people American academics of English literature Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Shakespeare authorship question Shakespearean scholars University of Chicago alumni