Edited Collection The Arden Handbook to Shakespeare’s Worlds

CFP: Edited Collection The Arden Handbook to Shakespeare’s Worlds

Editors Lisa Hopkins and Katherine Walker seek contributions from scholars at any stage of their careers to contribute to an edited collection titled The Arden Handbook to Shakespeare’s Worlds (for more on The Arden Shakespeare handbooks, see this link).

The Arden Handbook to Shakespeare’s Worlds emphasizes the plural within the title. Shakespeare inhabited a plenitude of worlds, from the urban hub of London, to the imaginative realms of the gods, the seamy tavern to the oracle of Apollo. Bringing together a diverse range of scholars across the globe at different stages in their career, this volume aims to provide a definitive guide to Shakespeare’s worlds for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate researchers.

Sections in which we are seeking contributors include:

The Reformation’s Reshaping of the Landscape
Animality
Labor
Institutions
Collaboration
Economics and the Middling Sort
Immigration
Criminality
Disease
European Nations
Religious Difference
Empire
Mapping
Myth
Technologies of Transport
Shifting Lands/Geology
The Rise of Colonialism
Indigeneity
Women in the Americas
Worlds of the Imagination
The Supernatural/Preternatural Worlds
Ecological Crises

We hope that contributors will approach the above topics with an eye to how these issues are shaped by (and in turn also shape) the different places of the early modern cosmos.

The Arden Handbook to Shakespeare’s Worlds is designed for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates specializing in Shakespeare studies, early modern literature, and Renaissance history. It will appeal to those interested in exploring the multifaceted “worlds” within Shakespeare’s works, including the socio-political landscapes, cultural contexts, and the rich diversity of characters and settings Shakespeare creates. The book is particularly suited for those studying Shakespeare’s engagement with global exploration, class structures, and different perspectives on identity formation in the period.

Please send your proposal for a chapter as an abstract of 300-500 words and a short biographical note by email to [email protected]. The deadline for abstracts is August 15, 2025.