This collection looks at the growing rapprochement between contemporary theory and early modern English literary-cultural studies. With sections on posthumanism and cognitive science, political theology, and rematerialism and performance, the essays incorporate recent theoretical inquiries into new readings of early modern texts.
Tarrying with the Subjunctive, an Introduction; P.Cefalu & B.Reynolds PART I: NEW FORMALISMS AND COGNITIVISM A Paltry 'Hoop of Gold': Semantics and Systematicity in Early Modern Studies; F.E.Hart If: Lear's Feather and the Staging of Science; A.Cook Ghosting the Subjunctive: Perceptual Technics in Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year and Transversal (New) Media; J.Boyle What was Pastoral (Again)? More Versions; J.Yates PART I: POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND THE RELIGIOUS TURN Introduction to a Totem Meal: Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt and Political Theology; J.Reinhard Lupton The Marlovian Sublime: Imagination and the Problem of Political Theology; G.Hammill Humanism and the Resistance to Theology; W.West 'Grace to Boot': St. Paul, Messianic Time, and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale ; K.Jackson 'Love's Best Habit': Eros, Agape and the Psychotheology of Shakespeare's Sonnets; G.Kuchar PART III: REMATERIALISMS Against Materialism in Literary Theory; D.Hawkes Performativity of the Court: Stuart Masque as Postdramatic Theatre; J.Limon 'Shakespeare, Idealism, and Universals: The Significance of Recent work on the Mind'; G.Egan Theater and the Scriptural Economy in Doctor Faustus ; I.Munro Index
