J.F. Bernard is an assistant professor of English at Champlain College, specializing in Renaissance drama and its philosophical, cultural, and social points of intersection. He is also interested in ideas of cultural production, adaptions, and storytelling, particularly as they relate to contemporary engagements with Shakespeare’s plays. His monograph, Shakespearean Melancholy: Philosophy, Form and the Transformation of Comedy, is forthcoming (August 2017) with Edinburgh University Press, as part of their Critical Series on Shakespeare and Philosophy. His current project places notions of contagion, theatrical publicity, and narrative in critical dialogue with one another, in an attempt to understand the social, cultural, and conversional impact of the stories produced and circulated by early modern drama. He is the project coordinator for the city of Montreal’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and co-producer, along with Louis-Patrick Leroux, of “High Wire Hamlet.”