Prerequisite: First-year students with permission. A study of selected comedies, histories, tragedies, and romances by William Shakespeare with attention to the plays’ cultural and literary context. Topics will vary by semester. Topic for 2012-13: "Supernatural Shakespeare." Witches, fairies, ghosts, and gods: a surprising number of Shakespeare's plays incorporate mystical elements. Indeed, the plays ask us to consider whether the theater itself might be a place where magic can happen. During our course of Shakespeare's plays, we will pay special attention to the representation and use of the supernatural in the works we read. V.2