In 2025 questions related to justice continued to invigorate the field of Shakespeare studies. Scholars approached the works through overlapping, historically informed registers – from the cognitive and affective to racial, religious, postcolonial, gendered and philosophical. The pattern that emerged was less about shared ideological investments or abstractions than methodological priorities, and a conviction in the power of drama to shape and critique social and ethical responsibilities. The books reviewed here emphasize varieties of material knowledge including the body, conditions of the rehearsal room and classroom, and acts of creative and critical reappropriation. A question running through many of them is how can Shakespeare be used to challenge moral and structural biases and the struggle for equitable recognition? The answers (not surprisingly) vary considerably. But the concern itself – Shakespeare’s ongoing role in systems of exclusion – frames this round-up of some of the year’s most compelling interventions.