“And what should I do in Islamia?”: Shakespeare and the Virtues of Relevance

Shakespearean relevance unfolds through acts of care that enlist virtues such as courage, hope, attention, sympathy, and judgment in the construction of multi-directional memory spaces. Taking cues from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Roxanne Varzi’s Yalda: An Iranian Twelfth Night (2022), this chapter argues that the successful pursuit of relevance balances creativity, curation, and critique in the construction of layered memory spaces where past and present enrich and challenge each other. It shows, eventually, that Shakespearean drama stages multiple causalities that enter a world in crisis from different points and at different speeds.