Author and Professor of Literature Dr. Michael Mack delivered a lecture entitled “Hamlet: Shakespeare’s Mousetrap?” to students and faculty at Christendom College on February 7. The talk was the first in the College’s new Faith & Reason Lecture Series.

In his lecture, Mack reveals how Shakespeare uses one of his most famous plays to cause the audience to examine their own conscience. In the play itself, Hamlet uses a play,The Mousetrap, to cause the villain, Claudius, to examine his conscience.

Mack is an Associate Professor of English and the Dean of the Undergraduate Program at The Catholic University of America. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. His research interests include Shakespeare, sixteenth and seventeenth-century English poetry, and Renaissance literary theory. In 2005, CUA Press published Mack’s book, Sidney’s Poetics: Imitating Creation. He is currently working on a book on Shakespeare.