James S. Shapiro
James S. Shapiro was born in 1955 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Midwood High School before earning his bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1977. A master's followed in 1978, and he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago by 1982. His academic career began with teaching positions at Dartmouth College and Goucher College. In 1985, he joined the faculty at Columbia University where he remains today. He has taught Shakespeare and other topics for nearly four decades since that appointment. During the late 1980s, he served as a Fulbright lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and Tel Aviv University. The years between 1988 and 1989 marked his time lecturing abroad on behalf of the United States government.
The book 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare appeared in London through Faber and Faber in 2005. Robert McCrum wrote about this work in The Observer on the 5th of June 2005, calling it powerful. Literary Review described the commentary as precise and engrossing regarding the sea-change in Shakespeare's language during that specific year. Shapiro won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006 for this volume. The award came with £30,000 attached to the non-fiction category. Critics noted how the text set itself apart from standard biographies by focusing on a single calendar year rather than a lifetime. The book later received the Baillie Gifford Prize Winner of Winners award in 2023. This recognition highlighted its enduring impact on historical understanding of the playwright's creative output.
Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? arrived in New York via Simon & Schuster in 2010. The Theatre Library Association awarded Shapiro the George Freedley Memorial Award in 2011 for this study of the authorship question. Stephen Marche wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine on the 21st of October 2011, discussing the Oxfordian theory. He compared using Shapiro's brain on the subject to bringing an F-22 fighter jet to an alley knife fight. Elizabeth Winkler published a piece about Shapiro's correspondence with Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in 2011. Stevens was a proponent of the Oxfordian theory which claimed Edward de Vere wrote the plays. Shapiro described his work as the definitive treatment debunking that specific claim. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences inducted him into their ranks the same year he published the book.
Shapiro has received awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities throughout his career. The Huntington Library and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture also granted him funding for publications and academic activities. In 2006, he became a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow. That same year he joined the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. His book The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography upon its hardback release in 2015. It also secured the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography. The text appeared in October 2015 through Simon & Schuster. He presented a three-part series on BBC Four called The King & the Playwright about Shakespeare and King James VI and I. This broadcast explored the Jacobean era during his tenure as a public intellectual.
The Chautauqua Institution hosted James Shapiro on the 15th of July 2002, to discuss Oberammergau. He wrote about the troubling story of the world's most famous Passion Play in a 2000 book published by Pantheon Books. Shapiro contributed essays to The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Financial Times. He wrote for The Daily Telegraph and The New York Times Book Review regularly. A 2014 anthology titled Shakespeare in America included a foreword by Bill Clinton. The volume covered the period from the American Revolution until the present day. In March 2020, he released Shakespeare in a Divided America through Penguin Press. The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War arrived in 2024 via Penguin Press. That work earned him the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2025. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.
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Common questions
When was James S. Shapiro born and where did he grow up?
James S. Shapiro was born in 1955 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York.
What book by James S. Shapiro won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006?
The book 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare appeared in London through Faber and Faber in 2005 and won the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006 for non-fiction.
Who wrote about James S. Shapiro's work on the Oxfordian theory in The New York Times Magazine?
Stephen Marche wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine on the 21st of October 2011 discussing the Oxfordian theory and comparing Shapiro's approach to bringing an F-22 fighter jet to an alley knife fight.
Which award did James S. Shapiro receive for his book The Year of Lear in 2015?
His book The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 won the James Tait Black Prize for Biography upon its hardback release in 2015 and also secured the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.
When was the book Shakespeare in a Divided America released by James S. Shapiro?
In March 2020, he released Shakespeare in a Divided America through Penguin Press which covered the period from the American Revolution until the present day.