Introduction

Stephen Greenblatt, John Cogan University Professor at Harvard University, is the 2016 Holberg Laureate. In this interview Greenblatt shares his thoughts on the role of New Historicism in literary studies, the socio-economic changes in the US in the 1960's and 1970's, and how the work of William Shakespeare is still relevant today, 400 years after his death. Greenblatt is interviewed by Charles Ivan Armstrong, Professor of English Literature at the University of Agder. The production is a collaboration between the Holberg Prize and the University of Bergen.