Rachel Shteir, author of the award-winning book Striptease and an associate professor in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism at the Theater School at DePaul University, examines the history of shoplifting from its modern roots in Elizabethan England-when stealing was punishable by death-to today. Along the way, she addresses shoplifting in its every iteration, from compulsive stealing as a disease, to a representation of teen angst, to an act born out of desperate need, to a form of protest against governments and corporations.