Folger Fellows, Folger staff, program participants, and undergraduates contributed to another great year of Collation posts. As always, the topics were wide-ranging, creative, and thought-provoking. Thank you to all of our contributors for their deep dives into the collection and for writing such interesting posts, and thank you to our readers for engaging with them and sharing them! 42 posts this year, phew! See you in 2026!
And now, our five most popular posts of 2025 are:
Mercedes Annaís Estévez Cruz (Little Spider, Good Tree) (2024-2025 Long-Term Artistic Research Fellow), reads and annotates Christopher Columbus’ diary with an eye towards his destructive legacy.
McKenzie Knight, a participant in the spring 2025 Folger Institute undergraduate colloquy “Whose Sovereignty?”, explores the visual language used to depict Othello in art and performance.
A collaborative post between Heather Wolfe (Folger Curator of Manuscripts) and former Folger fellows Ray Schrire and Peter Stallybrass, this answer to a Folger Mystery deciphers the traces of reckoning (adding up things or money using decorative metal discs) found in early modern English manuscript account books.
Suzette Marie Martin (2024-2025 Artistic Research Fellow) uses research done on the Folger’s collection of herbals to help her create Herbarius: A New Herbal for the Anthropocene, a series of paintings that explore humanity’s complex relationship with the natural world.
Leah Hampton (2024-2025 Artistic Research Fellow) takes a closer look at early modern posy rings in the Folger’s collection and the significance of the messages engraved inside their bands.
Read more from The Collation and our other blog, Shakespeare & Beyond
Top five Shakespeare & Beyond blog posts of 2025
Enjoy our top five Shakespeare & Beyond blog posts from 2025. Happy reading!
Top five podcast episodes of 2025
Enjoy the top five Shakespeare Unlimited podcast episodes from 2025, ranked by number of listens. Happy listening!
Race B4 Race 2025, Seminar 3: What We’re Reading and Why
The RaceB4Race Mentorship Network reads The Other Faces of Arthur: Chivalric Whiteness in the Global North Atlantic
Q&A with Alexa Babakhanian
Alexa Babakhanian shares the history of Dark Lady: A Musical Theater Work, her Broadway aspirations for the play, and why she was drawn to Amelia Bassano as a possible author for Shakespeare’s works.
Musicals inspired by Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s poetry, plots, and characters have inspired dozens of musicals, as well as numerous comic songs and even special cameos. Austin Tichenor explores the musical theater that keeps us humming and brushing up our Shakespeare.
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