Julie Stone Peters

Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880

Print, Text, and Performance in Europe

This volume explores the impact of printing on the European theatre in the period 1480-1880 and shows that the printing press played a major part in t...

Law as Performance

Theatricality, Spectatorship, and the Making of Law in Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Europe

Tirades against legal theatrics are nearly as old as law itself, and yet so is the age-old claim that law must not merely be done: it must be "seen to...

Congreve, the Drama, and the Printed Word

In the late seventeenth century, theater and print began the history of their tense relations and imperfect alliance. Plays, of course, had been print...

Staging Witchcraft Before the Law

Scepticism, Performance as Proof, and Law as Magic in Early Modern Witch Trials

While the judicial machinery of early modern witch-hunting could work with terrifying swiftness, skepticism and evidentiary barriers often made convic...