In less than two generations, the proportion of Australians who never pick up a Bible has leapt to seven out of ten. But a robust biblical literacy can help us decode creative works and understand the past.
Anne-MarieDuff and Rory Kinnear as the Macbeths.
Brinkhoff and Moegenburg/National Theatre
The Great War uses scale models to give a worm’s eye view of titanic violence. In Kings of War, by contrast, lethal events are viewed from the unsteady perspective of leaders.
Allan Clayton as Hamlet and Lorina Gore as Ophelia in Brett Dean’s opera at the Adelaide Festival.
Tony Lewis
Neil Armfield’s production of the Brett Dean opera Hamlet is a confronting three hours in the theatre, but then so is Shakespeare’s play. The second act is devastating in its emotional impact.
The theme at the core of Rowling’s wizarding world speaks directly to a universal human reality: The struggle to come to terms with our mortality.
Shutterstock
We may think of Harry Potter as escapist delight, but J.K. Rowling’s books also contain an extended theme that has more in common with King Lear than most English professors might care to admit.
Relics of St. Valentine of Terni at the basilica of Saint Mary in Cosmedin.
Dnalor 01 (Own work)
Lisa Bitel, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Valentine’s Day originated as a feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third-century Christian martyr, or perhaps two. It took a gruesome path to becoming a romantic holiday.
French engraving of a cuckolded husband.
University of Victoria
‘Cuck’, short for cuckold, is the favoured insult of men’s rights activists today. But the term has a long history: from the 16th to 18th centuries it reflected a deep anxiety about women’s sexual appetites.
John Fead, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, 1851.
Wikimedia
The first recorded performance of the theatre company that Shakespeare co-founded was at a playhouse south of the Thames, but was lost to historians for centuries. Now we know where it lies.
A statue of former Cape Colony governor Cecil Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town after student protests.
EPA/Nic Bothma
The process of decolonising research methodology is an ethical, ontological and political exercise rather than simply one of approach and ways of producing knowledge.
Market street near the Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab. Ben Crowe/ERA Films
The Rover begins with 17th-century playwright Aphra Behn inviting those who don’t like the idea of a female writer to fuck off, setting the tone for a hilarious and utterly relevant romp through Naples.
The series has divided critics: many have praised its sensitive depiction of rape and suicide, others have said it romantises taking one’s own life.
Gregg Henry portrays President Donald Trump in the role of Caesar in the Public Theater’s Free Shakespeare in the Park production of ‘Julius Caesar,’ in New York City.
Joan Marcus/The Public Theater via AP
Some have denounced the New York Public Theater for encouraging violence against President Trump. But the play does just the opposite, warning of the pitfalls of political assassination.
Filling in the gaps.
Jonathan Brady/PA Archive/PA Images