Introduction: #SocialmediaShakespeares

In their introductory essay, Maurizio Calbi and Stephen O'Neill explore the interrelations between social media and Shakespeare(s), providing a theoretical consideration of both categories that ultimately moves toward an argument for their rhizomatic intersections. Shakespeare increasingly "becomes" through social media (in a Deleuzian sense), and indeed, forms of social media are rearticulated through Shakespeare. The essay also guides the reader through this special issue in which the contributors variously map, define, scrutinize, and challenge social media, Shakespeare and their uncanny convergences