Richard van Oort

I teach Shakespeare and other Renaissance authors as well as courses in literary theory and criticism. I’m interested in the question of why humans need such things as literature, art, and religion, and have found the anthropological theories of Émile Durkheim, René Girard, Eric Gans, Terrence Deacon, and Ernest Gellner illuminating. My most recent books are 'Shakespeare's Big Men' (University of Toronto Press, 2016) and 'Shakespeare's Mad Men' (Stanford University Press, 2022).