Dr. Puljcan Juric Recontextualizes Shakespeare

“What country, friends, is this?

This is Illyria, lady.”

So begins Viola’s story as a stranger in a strange land, one that most scholars have long interpreted as an imaginary dukedom.

Until now.

With her new book, Illyria in Shakespeare’s England (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press), Dr. Puljcan Juric challenges the critical tradition of reading Illyria, the setting of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, as a place with no real geographical counterpart, and the related tendency to misrepresent or ignore the region’s resonance in other early modern English writing.

Dr. Puljcan Juric

The book locates Illyria in the complex geopolitics of the Adriatic and broader Mediterranean region, engaging with subjects such as “othering,” religion, race, and the development of national identity, among other issues.

Dr. Puljcan Juric broadens the conversation on these familiar problems in the field to include the impact of post-Renaissance notions of the Balkans on the erasure of Illyria from Shakespeare studies, thus raising questions about enduring cultural bias, elitism, and colonialist outlooks in both past and present-day academic scholarship.

Congratulations to Dr. Puljcan Juric on her significant achievement.

For more information, click here: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781683931768/Illyria-in-Shakespeare’s-England