Sometimes we read books

Here at Blogging the Renaissance, it's not all funny stories about teaching, puns on penis and vagina, and snark about conferences. Sometimes we actually do research and sometimes we keep up with work in our field. And now, through the magics of the internets, you can keep up right along with us. We're starting an occasional reading group (very occasional if other obligations like teaching, committees, and of course blogging, get in the way), in which we pick a book and set a date by which we'll have read it, and then we'll post about it. Radical idea, we know. If you want to read the book and join in the commenting fun, so much the better. We'll be thrilled. If not, well, we'll just talk to each other, as we do so often here. We're not proud. As with our conference reports, you'll be able to find our reading history in the sidebar, for all the future archival historians out there. And for all the authors in our field who are constantly Googling themselves (lock the bathroom door). For our first book, we're deciding among: Debora Shuger's Political Theologies in Shakespeare's England: The Sacred and the State in 'Measure for Measure' (2001) Julia Lupton's Citizen-Saints: Shakespeare and Political Theology (2005) Richard Halpern's Shakespeare Among the Moderns (1997) Why are we deciding among these? No real reason. People are talking about political theology a lot, and we all liked Halpern's first book. If you look at the dates on them, you can see how well we've been keeping up with work in our field. Hence the reading group. So those are the options. Feel free to chime in with your choice. Or we'll just pick one. Read along with us. It'll be fun. Just like when you were in kindergarten and the preznit read you My Pet Goat, or as we like to call it, Reading Mastery Level 2, Storybook 1 (1997).