James S. Shapiro

For other people named James Shapiro, see James Shapiro (disambiguation).

James S. Shapiro (born September 11, 1955) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specialises in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.

Life

Shapiro was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He obtained his B.A. at Columbia University in 1977, Master's degree in 1978 and Ph.D. at University of Chicago in 1982. After teaching at Dartmouth College and Goucher College, Shapiro joined the faculty at Columbia University in 1985. He taught as a Fulbright lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and Tel Aviv University (1988–1989) and served as the Samuel Wanamaker Fellow at the Globe Theatre in London (1998). Shapiro also co-directed two National Endowment for the Humanities Institutes on Shakespeare, co-edited the Columbia Anthology of British Poetry (1995), and has served as associate editor of the Columbia History of British Poetry (1994).

He received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Huntington Library, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for his publications and academic activities. He got the Hoffman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship on Marlowe and in 1997 the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (SCSC), McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, bestowed him the Roland H. Bainton Prize for his book Shakespeare and the Jews. He has written for a number of periodicals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Book Review, The Financial Times, and The Daily Telegraph. In 2006 he was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow as well as a Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.

Shapiro won the 2006 Samuel Johnson Prize as well as the 2006 Theatre Book Prize for his work "1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare". In 2010 he published Contested Will, a book about the history of the Shakespeare authorship question.

Family

James S. Shapiro is married, has a son (born 1996), and divides his time between New York City and Thetford, Vermont.

Literature

• Shapiro, James S.: Rival playwrights : Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare. - New York : Columbia University Press, 1991. - xi, 203 p. - ISBN 0-231-07540-5
• Kastan, David.: Shakespeare and the Book. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-78651-7
• The Columbia history of British poetry / Carl Woodring, editor ; associate editor, James Shapiro. - New York : Columbia University Press, 1993. - xi, 732 p. - ISBN 0-231-07838-2
• The Columbia anthology of British poetry / edited by Carl Woodring and James Shapiro. - New York : Columbia University Press, 1995. - xxxi, 891 p. - ISBN 0-231-10180-5
• Shapiro, James S.: Shakespeare and the Jews. - New York : Columbia University Press, 1996. - ix, 317 p. - ISBN 0-231-10344-1
• Shapiro, James S.: Oberammergau : the troubling story of the world's most famous passion play. - New York : Pantheon Books, 2000. - x, 238 p. - ISBN 0-375-40926-2
• Shapiro, James S.: 1599 : A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. - London : Faber and Faber, 2005. - xxiv, 429 p. - ISBN 0-571-21480-0
• Shapiro, James, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? - New York : Simon and Schuster; London : Faber and Faber, 2010. 352 p. - ISBN 1-416-54162-4

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
• 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: Death in a tenured position, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2000
• Robert McCrum: To hold a mirror up to his nature, The Observer, June 5, 2005 (review of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare)
• Authors: 'A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare', NPR radio program Talk of the Nation, October 18, 2005 (audio stream file and excerpt from the first chapter)
• Interview with James S. Shapiro on Shakespeare biographies
• An Interview with James Shapiro — The Literateur interviews James Shapiro on the subject of Shakespeare conspiracy theories and authorship