In this fortieth volume of Renaissance Drama, we pause again, not with the idea that we could define, or even describe, what might be, ought to be, or is included in the study of Renaissance drama (or if it is even always or ever the Renaissance, or the drama, that we study). But this does not even seem to have been what moved the first conversations that became "Research Opportunities" and Renaissance Drama. Rather, as they seem to have felt, we want to look at where we are and where our studies might lead us, and we too think we might as well make a beginning. For this issue, the editors invited a number of scholars working on different kinds of Renaissance drama, in a variety of ways and in several languages, to contribute brief essays addressing the state of the field of Renaissance drama, "the field" being convenient shorthand for the practical but productive indefinition under which we carry out our research and publish Renaissance Drama. In particular we asked them to consider these questions:

• How and with what effects has the study of Renaissance drama (or early modern performance) changed over the past half-century?


• What now is Renaissance drama?　 What could Renaissance drama become?


• What do you see as the most exciting (or least productive) development in the field?


• How have other developments in literary studies, performance studies, or other historical periods affected work in the field?


• What is missing from work in the field that it would be desirable to include or revive?


• Are there strategies you would propose for working through the divisions in the field based on national boundaries, between languages and traditions, or between canonical figures like Shakespeare, Molière, and other kinds of work?　 What kinds of distinctions do you see in the field?　 How are they useful or misleading?


• What new avenues in the field should open up further?　 Where should we look now?


• What is the most important work being done, or remaining to be done?

William N. West is an associate professor of English, classics, and comparative literary studies at Northwestern University, a fellow of the Humanities Residential College, and a codirector of the drama major. He is the author of Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe (2002) and is currently at work on a book about early modern English theatrical performance and theatergoing.

Introduction, William N. West

1. "Taking Stock," Karen Newman
2. "Exclusive of," Jonathan Goldberg
3. "Renaissance and/or Early Modern Drama and/or Theatre and/or Performance: A Dialogue," Barbara Hodgdon & W.B. Worthen
4. "Toward a New Theatricality?" Henry S. Turner
5. "The Play’s Not the Thing," Bruce R. Smith
6. "The Dream of a Perfect History," S. P. Cerasano
7. "Acting and Ontology in Molière," Christopher Braider
8. "What’s the Worst Thing You Can Do to Shak/x/espeare?" Richard Burt and Julian Yates
9. "Recent Trends in Editing of Renaissance Drama Anthologies," David Bevington
10. "Authority and Theatrical Community: Early Modern Spanish Theater Manuscripts," Margaret Greer
11. "Defining the Proper Members of the Renaissance Theatrical Community," Mary Bly
12. "No Field is an Island: Postcolonial and Transnational Approaches to Early Modern Drama," Barbara Fuchs
13. "‘Après le déluge, More Criticism’: Philology, Literary History and Ancestral Reading," Michael Witmore and Jonathan Hope
14. "Renaissance Drama: Future Directions," Tiffany Stern
15. "Still No Precise Subject: The View from French," Katherine Ibbett
16. "The Work of Italian Theatre," Jane Tylus
17. "William Shakespeare’s Regnal Connections: Whose Court is This Anyway?" Leeds Barroll
18. "Tragedy and Trauerspiel for the (Post) Westphalian Age," Jane O. Newman

  19.   "Hannah Arendts Straße," Julia Reinhard Lupton