David Kastan is the George M. Bodman Emeritus Professor of English at Yale University, having previously taught at Columbia University and Dartmouth College. He has been honored by universities in Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, China, and India, where a chair has recently been established in his name. He is among the most influential American critics writing about literature and art, particularly the complex relationship between culture and history.

He was the first American to serve as a General Editor of The Arden Shakespeare, and he was the co-editor of The Bantam Shakespeare and the series editor of the Barnes & Noble Shakespeare. Among his books are A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion, Shakespeare and the Book, Shakespeare After Theory, and Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time. His book, On Color, written with the painter Stephen Farthing, was published by Yale University Press in 2018, and he is now writing a book on Shakespeare and Rembrandt.