#  Introduction 

 



 ##  

  expand\_more  

 
  

 

The book’s introduction narrates the aftermath of the 2016 election from the perspective of a Shakespeare scholar, moving from the personal to the professional. *How do we explain this to our kids?*was the refrain at home. At work, the academic version was *How do we handle this in class?* I discuss on-going debates about the place of politics in the classroom. I deepen the claim that the election was a “tragedy” through a discussion of what “tragedy” really means to literary critics. I present Trump’s election as evidence of what scholars call “the crisis in the humanities” (which is reconfigured as a crisis in the larger educational system which has devalued the humanities). Results from a survey of Shakespeare scholars are discussed. I develop a taxonomy of the Shakespeare-and-Trump discourse, and offer some best practices. And the over-arching question of the book – *Why has Shakespeare repeatedly shown up in the story of Trump?* – is answered in the opportunity to identify how our moment relates to the larger themes of Western history.

The Introduction is available to read on Temple University Press's page for [Shakespeare and Trump](http://tupress.temple.edu/book/20000000010076).