July 2023 MBR The Literary Studies Shelf

The Literary Studies Shelf

The Bard in the Borderlands: Volume 1
Katherine Gillen, editor
Adrianna M. Santos, editor
Kathryn Vomero Santos, editor
ACMRS Press
Arizona State University
PO Box 874402, Tempe, AZ 85287-4402
https://acmrspress.com
9780866988384, $19.95, PB, 350pp

https://www.amazon.com/Bard-Borderlands-Anthology-Shakespeare-Appropriations/dp/0866988386

Synopsis: For several decades, Chicanx and Indigenous theater makers have been re-purposing Shakespeare's plays to reflect the histories and lived realities of the US-Mexico Borderlands and to create space to tell stories of and for La Frontera. Celebrating this rich tradition, :The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera" brings a wide range of Borderlands Shakespeare plays together for the first time in a multi-volume open-access scholarly edition.

Collaboratively co-edited by the academic editorial team of Katherine Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn Vomero Santos, "The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1" is anthology that celebrates the dynamic, multilingual reworking of canon and place that defines Borderlands Shakespeare, and it situates these geographically and temporally diverse plays within the robust study of Shakespeare's global afterlives.

The editors offer a critical framework for understanding the artistic and political traditions that shape these plays and the place of Shakespeare within the multilayered colonial histories of the region. Borderlands Shakespeare plays, they contend, do not simply reproduce Shakespeare in new contexts but rather use his work in innovative ways to negotiate colonial power and to envision socially just futures.

Critique: "The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1" features a wide range of plays that deftly re-imagine Shakespeare works from Borderlands perspectives. Unique, ground-breaking, exceptional, thought-provoking, and inherently fascinating, "The Bard in the Borderlands" is a distinctive, ground-breaking, and unreservedly recommended as an addition to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Shakespeare studies collections. Of special appeal and value for readers with an interest in Hispanic American Dramas & Plays, it should be noted that "The Bard in the Borderlands" is also available in a paperback edition (9780866988391, $19.95).

Editorial Note #1: Katherine Gillen (https://tamus.academia.edu/KGillen/CurriculumVitae) is associate professor of English at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. She is the author of Chaste Value: Economic Crisis, Female Chastity, and the Production of Social Difference on Shakespeare's Stage.

Editorial Note #2: Adrianna M. Santos (https://adriannasantos.wordpress.com) is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University-San Antonio where she acts as cocoordinator of the Mexican American, Latinx, and Borderlands Studies interdisciplinary minor.

Editorial Note #3: Kathryn Vomero Santos (https://kathrynvomerosantos.com) is assistant professor of English and codirector of the Humanities Collective at Trinity University. She currently serves as Performance Reviews Editor for Shakespeare Bulletin.

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