On the Spot: Emma Smith
‘We can’t see our own blindspots, so, as we anatomise those of our predecessors, we perpetuate our own.’
Why are you a historian of Shakespeare?
A history of Shakespeare is a cultural and political history of the last 400 years: it enables me to think about topics from cross-gender casting to political theory.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
We can’t see our own blindspots, so, as we anatomise those of our predecessors, we perpetuate our own.
Which book has had the greatest influence on you?
Gary Taylor’s Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present.
What book in your field should everyone read?
Jan Kott’s Shakespeare Our Contemporary.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
The opening of the Globe Theatre in 1599.
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