Shakespeare, Money, and Meaning-Making

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

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Summary

Can reading King Lear help us rethink economic policy? Can Measure for Measure shape how we talk about justice, or Hamlet help us face grief? That’s the idea behind an ambitious project at Montreal’s McGill University called Reimagining Shakespeare, Remaking Modern World Systems. Led by Laurette Dubé, professor emerita of management, and Paul Yachnin, professor of Shakespeare studies, the initiative brings together experts in economics, health policy, AI, and robotics, with theater and literary artists and humanities scholars, to explore how Shakespeare’s plays can help us think more humanely—and creatively—about the systems we inhabit. In this episode, Dubé and Yachnin discuss how Shakespeare’s theater created a space where money, power, and empathy intersected—and why those same plays may hold insights for addressing today’s most complex challenges, reminding us of how the humanities can help us build a better future. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published July 15, 2025. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This episode was produced by Matt Frassica. Garland Scott is the executive producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. We had help with web production from Paola García Acuña. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. Final mixing services are provided by Clean Cuts at Three Seas, Inc.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:07.0	I'm Farah Karim Cooper, the Folger Director.
0:11.0	We're living through a historical moment that's defined by wicked problems,
0:17.0	like climate change and global instability. To even begin to tackle problems like these,
0:23.6	sometimes it feels like you need double PhDs
0:26.6	in economics and political science,
0:29.6	with a bit of theoretical physics for good measure.
0:32.6	But what if reading Shakespeare could help us
0:35.6	to navigate the world that we're living in today?
0:39.6	What would happen if the people making big, far-reaching decisions sat down with a play like King Lear first?
0:48.1	An ambitious initiative based at McGill University in Montreal brings together bright lights and economics, AI, healthcare policy,
0:57.0	and other fields with Shakespearean scholars, actors, and writers. Called Reimagining Shakespeare,
1:04.0	remaking modern world systems, its goal is nothing less than to change the way the world works.
1:11.4	Reimagining Shakespeare starts from the idea that Shakespeare himself was a so-called social
1:17.1	entrepreneur.
1:18.7	That is to say, he and other playwrights of his day were not just making money.
1:24.2	They were offering new ways of making meaning for their audiences. Their plays gave audiences
1:30.1	the space to creatively imagine what kind of world they wanted to live in. The reimagining Shakespeare
1:36.7	project is attempting to reunite moneymaking and meaning making in our time too. Lorette D Dube, a professor emerita of management at McGill,
1:47.6	and Paul Yachtnan, an English professor,
1:50.4	are the leaders of this initiative.
1:53.2	Here are Lorette Dubei and Paul Yachnan in conversation with Barbara Bogue.
	...

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