Call for papers
Calls for papers -Registration Now Open
Please follow the link to the session to which you wish to contribute. The sessions are as follows:
Locating Early Modern Repertories: Shakespeare & the London playing companies
This seminar will consider the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in relation to early modern playing companies, be that the companies who staged their plays, companies by whose repertories they were influenced, or companies whose repertories were influenced by them. It is informed by the work of critics including Roslyn Knutson, Andrew Gurr, Scott McMillin and Sally-Beth MacLean, Mary Bly and Lucy Munro who have variously examined early modern drama within a repertorial framework. It will particularly welcome papers that address the global/local theme of the conference: this could (for example) be by examining the theatrical marketplace of early modern London, or by considering the impact of changing locales on performance, whether through touring in England or abroad or through moving between theatres in the capital. Some other possible topics for discussion are suggested below:
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the relationship between playing companies and their London audiences and/or their aristocratic patrons
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competition, collaboration, or influence between company repertories
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London's play-making geography: where actors and players lived, the relationship between theatres and their surrounding communities
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playing companies and early modern civic culture: company finance, apprenticeship, relationships with the livery companies,
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involvement in civic drama.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Tom Rutter (
t.rutter@shu.ac.uk)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
Shakespeare in Wartime: The 20th Century
This seminar seeks to generate a discussion of wartime appropriations of Shakespeare and his works in the course of the twentieth century. Papers may focus on the ways in which Shakespeare has been used for propaganda or anti-war purposes, how his work has functioned in the debate over alliances, has helped to account for neutrality, or has contributed to seek peace. Papers may also study the ways in which Shakespeare and his work have served to come to terms with wartime experiences in more personal terms (letters, diaries, poetry), or how the production, criticism, translation and adaptation of Shakespeare's plays and poems has been affected by wartime conditions (fund raising, amateur Shakespeare). It is hoped that papers discussing these issues will also bear in mind the issue of multi-locality that comes naturally with the idea of war and address relations between European nations, but also between Europe and the US, or Europe and other continents, in order to reflect on the status of "Shakespeare" as an English, a European, and a world author.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Ton Honselaars (
ton.hoenselaars@let.uu.nl)
and Clara Calvo (
ccalvo@um.es).
Proposals should be submitted by 15 June 2009.
Asian Shakespeares in Europe
From Ariane Mnouchkine's controversial "Orientalised" of
Richard II in 1981 to Kenneth Branagh's Japanese-inflected
As You Like It in 2006, from Yukio Ninagawa's Kabuki-
Macbeth at the Edinburgh Festival in 1985 to Eugenio Barba's and Ong Keng Sen's adaptations of
Hamlet with Euro-Asian casts at the Kronborg castle's Hamlet Sommer festival (2006; 2002), and from the
Kathakali King Lear at the London Globe in 1999 to David Tse's bilingual
King Lear at the RSC Complete Works festival in 2006, there is a rich history of interactions between Shakespeare performance and Asian idioms in Europe. The recent influx of people of Asian descent (such as Prague-based Noriyuki Sawa) into Great Britain and Western Europe has fuelled cross-cultural blending, imposition, and appropriation. Whether "made in Europe" or "imported from Asia," these performances have compelled Anglo-European audiences to negotiate the unfamiliar and foreign forms of the familiar and "local" canon that is Shakespeare.
Papers on critical issues raised by Asian-themed Shakespearean performance in Europe are invited. What resources are available in critical theory that we might bring to bear on the connections and disjuncture between Asian Shakespeares in Europe and more traditionally-defined national Shakespeares around the world? Papers may address but should not be limited to questions such as: Does watching bilingual or multilingual Shakespeares–through subtitles or surtitles–overcome or reinforce cultural boundaries? Are such encounters with otherness (other Asia, other Shakespeares) legitimising local reading positions or the operation of cultural imperialism?
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Alexander Huang (
acyhuang@psu.edu)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
Shakespeare's Europe: Early Modern Contexts
This seminar aims to place Shakespeare’s drama and poetry within a transnational process of cultural and literary exchange characterizing the migration of ideas, discourses, and influences, together with the transmission of models, topoi, and theatregrams, which contributed to the formation of early modern culture, despite the presence of domestic anxieties and the strength of national divides.
The seminar welcomes papers which bring into focus this ‘continental’ context, discussing the impact of European cultural traditions on the theatrical, ideological, linguistic, and rhetorical construction of Shakespeare’s drama; the representation of foreign cultures on the Shakespearean stage; or the dialogue between the English and European Renaissance within an intercultural perspective.
Topics may include all areas of influence and intertextuality, ranging from social, educational, and political discourses, together with narrative, dramatic, and iconographic traditions, that may throw light on Shakespeare’s works.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Keir Elam (
elam@lingue.unibo.it)
and Michele Marrapodi (
marrapod@unipa.it)
Proposals should be submitted by 10 June 2009.
Localizing Shakespeare in Asia
Although each Asian community has its own theatrical tradition, Shakespeare is probably the most read, studied, and performed single playwright in Asia. On the one hand, Shakespeare’s manifold presence exerts enormous influence: he is incorporated into formal education of English, translated and transformed on stage, and popularized by comic books and animation. On the other hand, Asia - both as a treasury of literature and art and as an emerging superpower - also informs Shakespeare scholarship and performance in the West. This seminar aims at exploring the intricate relations between Shakespeare and Asia.
Topics may include, but are not restricted to:
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Shakespeare and British colonization in Asia
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Shakespeare and Asian indigenous theatres
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Shakespeare and Asian politics
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Shakespeare and Asian religions
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Shakespeare and Asian philosophy
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Shakespeare and American cultural imperialism in Asia
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Shakespeare and Asian popular culture
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Beatrice Lei (
blei@ntu.edu.tw)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
Global & Local Shakespeare Pedagogies in the University Context
Recent scholarship in Shakespeare studies suggests that the way in which Shakespeare's plays make meaning in performance is strongly inflected by local conditions. Theatrical performance, because of its immediacy and ephemerality is inevitably porous to local idiom, and to factors associated with its geographical, physical and cultural context. There is indisputable evidence within the plays that they operated this way in Shakespeare's period and it is no less the case in the present. The seminar 'Global and Local Shakespeare Pedagogies in the University Context' is predicated on this understanding of performance and aims to extend its ramifications into the realm of teaching and learning. The university Shakespeare course is, no less than the Shakespeare production, a live and culturally situated phenomenon. Shakespeare teaching practices evolved in one context do so in response to a different set of cultural variables to those evolved in another.
The aim of the seminar is to bring together from a range of contexts, academics and arts sector professionals who are explicitly involved in the research and development of Shakespeare studies programs for university. Some possible topics for consideration are: partnerships between professional arts companies and university departments, innovative incorporation of performance approaches in the Shakespeare studies curriculum, the challenges of assessing non-traditional learning activities, performance approaches for non-actors, Shakespeare studies and stage history, Shakespeare studies and digital technology. My research convinces me that pedagogical practices being developed in the field of Shakespeare studies are at the leading edge of educational development in general. However, many of these practices emerge and flourish chiefly in their own local contexts because they are based on individuals' repertoires of expertise and in response to local contingencies. The 'Global and Local Pedagogies' seminar, drawing on this vast pool of creative and scholarly expertise will, it is hoped, initiate global discussion on the subject of Shakespeare pedagogy.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Kate Flaherty (
kate.flaherty@usyd.edu.au)
and G. B. Skip Shand (
shand@gl.yorku.ca)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
Shylock in the 20th and 21st centuries: Global Perspectives
Shakespeare’s plays change over time and acquire new meanings in the specific cultural and medial contexts in which they are read, performed, or adapted. In this process, some plays even change genre. This is particularly true for
The Merchant of Venice. After the Second World War, many directors have found it no longer possible to stage the play as a comedy. The conflict between Venetian society and the Jewish moneylender as well as Shylock’s cruel revenge and his final punishment evoke uncanny associations with the long tradition of European anti-Semitism and, in particular, the Holocaust. There have been heated debates as to whether the play should be banned from schools and theatres altogether, so that when it is staged, productions often turn into political events and aesthetic concerns seem to be of secondary importance at best. Despite these general problems raised by
The Merchant of Venice at the beginning of the 21st century, it should not be ignored that there are considerable differences between e.g. German, American, Israeli or Taiwanese
Merchants as well as between productions by Jewish and non-Jewish directors. It thus seems crucial to pay close attention to the cultural or national contexts of the respective productions since it is these localizations that give the play its respective meaning. Shylock has entered the stage as a tragic hero and a villain; his Jewishness has been stressed or ignored; and he has been played as a victim of the Holocaust, a modern businessman or a migrant. Taking its point of departure from these multifaceted representations of Shylock, the seminar seeks to address the various and contradictory responses of directors, filmmakers, and critics worldwide to Shakespeare’s ‘problem play’.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Sabine Schuelting (
sabine.schuelting@fu-berlin.de)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
Filming and Performing Renaissance History
Over the last one hundred years, many of the events and personalities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been brought, via a variety of visual mediums, before home, cinema, exhibition, festival and theatrical audiences. This seminar session aims to address and investigate these representations in terms of the ways in which the early modern period is interpreted and re-interpreted in the popular consciousness. Concentrating on all types of filmic and performative examples, and posing questions about the constructedness of images of the Renaissance and the circulation of dominant visual signatures, the session will range across celluloid, theatrical performance, television, documentary and re-enactment ‘experiences’ so as to illuminate both modalities of historical representation and the means whereby the Renaissance is accessed in modernity. Practitioners, teachers, curators, historians, heritage officers and museum studies specialists are welcome, as are papers from non-Anglophone perspectives. The seminar is not a Shakespeare session per se; however, papers discussing Shakespeare as a conduit to an understanding of the Renaissance period are also welcome.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Mark Thornton-Burnett (
mark.burnett@qub.ac.uk)
Proposals should be submitted by 15 June 2009.
Shakespeare’s Next Editors
Though the activity of editing the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries was for over two hundred years the principle scholarly method for investigating these works, many younger scholars today confront an academic establishment that relegates editing, bibliography, and text studies to secondary or peripheral positions in graduate, doctoral, and junior faculty programs. This is particularly unfortunate given the exponential increase in innovative technologies, methodologies, and theories that encourage fresh approaches to essential questions about these plays. This session seeks papers from, for, or about the next generation of Shakespeare editors and that explore particular approaches, theories, or case studies in the editorial study and representation of early modern dramatic texts. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the use of new digital technologies in editing, "post-Theory" philosophies in the construction of edited works, the place of editorial activities in modern theatrical contexts, and the pedagogical application of editorial insights as teaching tools in the twenty-first century classroom.
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Matteo Pangallo (
mpangall@english.umass.edu)
Proposals should be submitted by 31 May 2009.
‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’
As the scare quotes in the title of this seminar indicate, both ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘Africa’ are constructed notions, invested with powerful affect. The politics of identity and identification are at work in the investments made in both concepts by individuals, groups, and nations, especially in the context of the need for cohesion in fractured or pluralistic societies. Both are implicated in the use of nostalgia to address anxieties about the present. Accordingly, both run the risk of being used to construct essentialist ideas or essentialising approaches. Bearing in mind, then, that both concepts should be invoked contingently and open-endedly, this seminar is interested in papers which engage the relation between Shakespeare and Africa.
The association between Shakespeare’s plays and political resistance in colonies and neo-colonies has been well-established. We are interested in papers that take the discussion beyond our established critical vocabulary in this regard. What more can we say about the ways Shakespeare has been deployed in Africa or in the African diaspora, beyond appropriation, hybridity, and mimicry? We know, too, that when Shakespeare is invoked, it immediately establishes a language of particular standing in the West, as well as a language that stands for the right to be seen as human, as cultured, and so as entitled to be heard, especially to be heard to ask for human rights in a liberal democratic framework. We take this as established knowledge, and invite contributions which take the debate beyond the idea that Shakespeare has been an interlocutor for Africans and those who identify with Africa, across the globe. What else is at stake for Africans (broadly defined) when they perform (in all senses) Shakespeare to themselves, each other, or the world? What is at stake when ‘Africa’ is invited in, or evoked, by mainstream ‘Shakespeare’? Where does our critical vocabulary need to go from here?
We welcome papers on the following areas, although other related topics will be considered equally:
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Continental or diasporic African communities’ uses of Shakespeare. We particularly welcome information from or about places in Africa besides South Africa, as well as historical examples of what we might call African Shakespeares: not only Shakespeares in Africa, but in any invocation of Africa as a concept or identification.
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The question of Shakespeare in translation: are such works still Shakespearean? When a Shakespearean text is made to speak to a culture and a language different from its own, and especially when this requires a shift of idiom, what is the relationship between the original and the new text? Critics have recognised Shakespeare’s cultural capital and ‘his’ authorisation of African cultures and experiences. Beyond this, what might be said about the politics of the Shakespeare translation in Africa? In what sense is the relationship mutually transformative, mutually reinforcing, if at all? What is recognisably Shakespearean about Shakespeare in translation? What might African translations be said to offer Shakespeare?
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Revisioning Shakespeare: how are we to read texts which talk back to Shakespeare, transforming and challenging the original but setting up an interpretative dialogue with ‘Shakespeare’? What interpretative function does Shakespeare the interlocutor perform in these ‘dialogues’ beyond processes of transculturation or hybrid resistance or identity-formation?
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The material pathways through which Shakespeare travels to African localities, including diasporic African communities, and considerations of how Shakespeare travels on from these localities back to the Shakespearean centre or mainstream of Anglo-American cultures.
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Investigations of specific performances of Shakespeare that relate to the concerns of this seminar. We are particularly interested in examining how to view and assess these performances without reinscribing their African components as the spectacle which enhances Shakespeare’s intellectual contribution to the performance. Whose interests get served when ‘Africanness’ is used to revitalise a well-known Shakespeare play, how, and why? How do such performances navigate the problematic of authenticity? What is the effect of (changing) location on the meanings constructed by a production, for instance when a production is performed in an African location (broadly defined) and then moves to a commercially and culturally central ‘Shakespearean’ location, such as the Globe?
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Shakespeare in African education systems: when and how has Shakespeare been embraced or rejected? How have his texts been taught, and to what effect? Again, these questions seek answers which go beyond what we already know about the invocation of Shakespeare’s universal humanity in the service of colonial education systems, or in post-colonial systems in order to facilitate a talking back to empire.
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What difference does gender make to these concerns in specific locations, texts, or performances?
Please send your proposal (200 word max) to: Natasha Distiller (
natasha.distiller@uct.ac.za)
and Sandra Young (
sandra.young@uct.ac.za)
Proposals should be submitted by 15 June 2009.