James Shapiro

Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Gerhard Casper Fellow - Class of Spring 2024

James Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He earned his BA and MA from Columbia, and PhD from the University of Chicago. Shapiro is the author of Shakespeare in a Divided America (Penguin, 2020); 1606: The Year of Lear (Faber, 2015); Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (Simon & Schuster, 2010); 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (Faber, 2005); Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play (Pantheon, 2000); Shakespeare and the Jews (Columbia, 1996); and Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare (Columbia, 1991). Shapiro has also edited the Library of America anthology Shakespeare in America (2014) and co-authored and appeared in the BBC docuseries The King and the Playwright: A Jacobean History (2012). His writing has also been published in the New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books, The Guardian, and New York Review of Books, among others. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim Foundation, and Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, among others. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he serves on the board of the Authors Guild and as Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at New York’s Public Theater.

Project Description

Playbook: The Creation and Demise of a Theater for All Americans

At the Academy, Shapiro will work on a book about the history of the Federal Theatre Project, the only federal theater ever founded in the United States. A New Deal initiative active from 1935-39, the theater famously drew thirty million playgoers across the country, and engaged pressing social and economic issues, including racial inequality, while in the depths of an extended Depression. The project, entitled Playbook: The Creation and Demise of a Theater for All Americans (under contract with Penguin and Faber), also traces the circumstances leading to the Federal Theatre’s abrupt closure by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), established in 1938 to investigate alleged subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and organizations suspected of communist or fascist ties. While ostensibly created to investigate these threats, under the direction of its chair, Martin Dies, the committee, Shapiro writes, “turned its attention instead to the culture wars, singling out for attack the progressive Federal Theatre, which led to its loss of government funding and soon after its demise.” In addition to his research and writing, Shapiro will explore Berlin’s role in Germany’s model of a decentralized federal theater, similar to that of New York City in the history of America’s Federal Theatre.

Academy Activities

18 Apr 24
The Rise and Fall of America’s Federal Theater Cultural Studies

Baden-Württemberg Seminar

The Rise and Fall of America’s Federal Theater

James Shapiro discusses his book-in-progress, "The Playbook: Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War."

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13 Feb 24
Theater, Democracy, and the Making of an American Culture War Cultural Studies

Gerhard Casper Lecture

Theater, Democracy, and the Making of an American Culture War

Tracing the rise and fall of the Depression-era Federal Theater.

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08 Feb 24

Fellow Spotlight: James Shapiro

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro is Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. At the Academy, He’s working on a book about the history of the Federal Theatre Project, the only federal theater ever founded in the United States, entitled “Playboo ...

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13 Feb 24

Theater, Democracy, and the Making of an American Culture War

In this talk, James Shapiro discusses his book-in-progress The Playbook: Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War, about the rise and fall of the Federal Theater. Established in the depths of the Great Depression, the Federal Theater employed over ten thousand out-of-work actors and sta ...

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