It is a sincere tribute to the lasting power of Lawrence Levine’s Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (1988) that I found myself thinking about its argument as I recently watched X-Men: Days of Future Past. I had just read that one of the film’s stars, Michael Fassbender, has been cast as Macbeth in a new film adaptation of the play. What is notable about that casting is not so much the choice of Fassbender, who is an actor of unusual range, mixing with ease both Old World sophistication and earthy physicality, but the fact that this casting Read more