Teaching Serial with Shakespeare: Using Rhetoric to Resist

Abstract

This chapter brings the wildly popular 2014 podcast Serial into conversation with Shakespearean tragedy (Romeo and Juliet; Othello) and problem comedy (Measure for Measure) through the unexpected lens of Aristotelian rhetoric. By first introducing the conventions of the classical persuasive arts, Holmes enables students to analyze the legal and interpretive crises that plague Renaissance literature and contemporary court cases alike. This combination empowers students to question the construction of cultural and legal narratives when truth itself seems precarious.