Michael Shapiro received his PhD from Columbia in 1967.  He  taught Shakespeare for over four decades at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and subsequently at Loyola for six years as a visiting professor.  He has published two books and many scholarly essays on Shakespeare and related topics, and is co-editor of and contributor to a forthcoming collection of essays on Jewish responses to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice entitled Wrestling With Shylock, which Cambridge University Press will publish in March.