Shakespeare and Disciplinarity

Abstract

This chapter explores the outliers of writing about Shakespeare: academic works in medical journals, law reviews, agricultural journals, and other unexpected places. Shakespeare’s plays function as a lingua franca—across disciplines, writers expect audiences to be familiar with the Bard and his works. The chapter argues that academic use of Shakespeare by non-Shakespeareans functions in four ways: (1) to make their work interesting and accessible to different readers; (2) to perform cultural capital; (3) to offer insight into concepts beyond Shakespeare; and (4) to analyze Shakespearean texts from different disciplinary lenses. Ultimately, Shakespeare’s works can be deployed both as a heuristic (a way to access other knowledge) and an epistemology (an underpinning framework that shapes the knowledge itself) in modern academic discourse.