Evelyn Gajowski (English) has published The Arden Research Handbook of Contemporary Shakespeare Criticism, a comprehensive guide by an international team of leading scholars to those critical practices that dominate Shakespeare studies today. It includes chapters on 20 specific critical practices, each grounded in an analysis of a Shakespeare text. A seismic shift occurred in the 1970s and 1980s: feminism, cultural materialism, and new historicism challenged traditional liberal humanism. Matters of difference — critical race studies, postcolonial studies, and queer studies — posed further challenges to traditional assumptions. Recent critical practices include global studies, disability studies, presentism, and cognitive ethology. UNLV alumni Jessica McCall ('11 PhD,) and Anthony Guy Patricia ('14 PhD) contribute chapters on "Feminist studies" and "Queer studies," respectively. Recent UNLV alumni Gary Lindeburg ('20 PhD) and Dorothy Vanderford ('20 PhD) also contribute an A–Z glossary of key terms, an introduction to further resources, and an annotated bibliography. The Arden Shakespeare in London has set the gold standard for the publication of Shakespeare's texts for more than a century.
