King's College London

The Shylock Now: Holocaust Memory, Antisemitism, and Jewish Identity in the 21C project saw Dr Richard Ashby (Department of English) engage in a creative-critical collaboration with Australian-Jewish theatre practitioner, Deborah Leiser-Moore (La Trobe University). Together, they worked on a project focused on using introspective interviews with academics, artists, writers, theatre practitioners, and Holocaust survivors to contribute to contemporary cultural understandings of Holocaust memory, antisemitism, Jewish self-perception, and minoritised identity.

Shylock, a central character The Merchant of Venice, is a profoundly ambiguous figure, representative of antisemitic tropes while also arguably sympathetically depicted as a victim of Christian prejudice and white supremacy. Depicted as both a villain and a victim, Shylock holds powerful symbolic resonance in our cultural imagination, and continues to impact both perceptions of Jews and Jewish self-perception. Overseeing interviews cantered on the figure of Shylock, an important if equivocal cultural touchstone, offered a compelling basis for exploring prevalent contemporary themes, including antisemitism and Jewish self-identity.

The series of interviews holds rich promise for future adaptation, serving as a valuable audio-visual archive and inspiring future performances. Richard and Deborah are currently working to develop the recorded material into accessible, thought-provoking and emotive outputs.