25 July 2025
In our Spotlight on Arts & Humanities piece, we look at how King’s collaborations with cultural institutions and educational programmes have led to new innovations, partnerships and a ‘re-engagement’ of Shakespeare in contemporary culture.
I have always been taught that Shakespeare was only for the rich or extremely clever people: this is not so – it is open to everyone.
Participant of the Massive Open Online Course as part of Shakespeare400
Shakespeare can have a reputation of being only for those in the arts, those in the know, or those who have the time to delve into the meaning hidden behind every syllable. King’s research and educational programmes show that Shakespeare really can be for everyone.
The Shakespeare Centre London is an enriched partnership between Shakespeare’s Globe and King’s that has lasted over 20 years – putting combined research and educational programmes, outreach work and world-class entertainment at the forefront of culture in the UK and beyond.
Delivered by the Shakespeare Centre London, the Shakespeare Studies MA enables a new generation of students to engage with early modern drama and learn on- and off-stage at the Globe theatre. Early Career Fellowships support aspiring academics in Shakespeare and Early Modern culture and literature studies, making postgraduate study more accessible.
The centre is also home to the Early Modern Scholars of Colour (EMSOC) network, which promotes, supports and fosters anti-racism and inclusivity in Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies to create academic and intellectual inclusivity across the field.
The London Shakespeare Seminars led by the centre allow anyone with an interest in the study of Shakespeare and early modern drama to engage with research from the UK and abroad, providing a platform for critically rigorous debate.
Shakespeare’s Globe and King’s have been in partnership for over two decades, working together to inspire a new generation of Shakespeareans through our shared MA and PhD supervision, and supporting ground-breaking research into Shakespeare in his own time and our own. I’m very proud to co-direct the Shakespeare Centre London, and help shape the future of Shakespeare in the classroom, on stage and screen, and in our lives.
Will Tosh, Director of Education – Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare’s Globe
Marking 400 years since the playwright’s death, Shakespeare400 (S400) moved away from the idea that Shakespeare’s work was for the privileged few and highlighted its worldwide significance by demystifying his work – making it accessible to as wide a range of people as possible.
At a local level, Dr Hannah Crawforth and Dr Elizabeth Scott-Baumann’s research was used to strengthen the connection between Shakespeare’s sonnets and contemporary poetry, leading Sprung from Shakespeare, a widening participation programme offering workshops for teachers and pupils at 13 London schools with low university entrance rates, reaching a total of 529 students. It also included poetry competitions and workshops.
At a global level, King’s research helped partners demonstrate Shakespeare’s generative worldwide reach including exhibitions in partnership with Royal Society of Literature and the British Library. Shakespeare: Print and Performance, the S400 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), was led by Dr Sarah Lewis (FutureLearn with King’s, the British Library and Shakespeare’s Globe) and ran four times between 2016 and 2020, reaching more than 19,000 participants across 120 countries.
I can’t even begin to tell you how it has changed me, apart from saying that my thoughts and understanding have undergone a sea change.
Participant of the Massive Open Online Course as part of Shakespeare400
With cultural partners, King’s researchers refocused attention on the intersection between Shakespeare’s life, the era in which he wrote and the full range of his works, dramatic and poetic, challenging the ‘heritage’ approach by rethinking Shakespeare’s legacies in new and living contexts for a substantive local and global audience.
Two exhibitions were at the heart of the S400 programme: By Me William Shakespeare: A Life in Writing, a collaboration and co-curation with the The National Archives featured documents including Shakespeare’s will, based on research put together by Professor Gordon McMullan, Professor Lucy Munro and Dr Crawforth at King’s.
A British Library exhibition Shakespeare in Ten Acts featured ten performances detailing Shakespeare’s life and King’s researchers – Professor Sonia Massai, Professor McMullan and Professor Munro – were members of the exhibition advisory board, providing input into planning and content for display.
The exhibition was “the second most highly rated of all [British Library] exhibitions” since the current library opened – with a 91 per cent average enjoyment rating.
S400 also saw significant increases in attendance to all the institutions involved, along with more partnership working.
Professor Farah Karim-Cooper delivered the first Shakespeare and Race Festival for the Globe in 2018, contradicting the view that race was not a question or issue during Shakespeare’s time. Now an annual fixture, the event explores topics such as critiques of colour-blind casting and how to Shakespeare’s work can reach more diverse audiences, especially children.
I don’t need everybody to love Shakespeare but I do think people need to feel entitled to it if they want it. Think about the British classroom and how diverse it is racially. You don’t get the full flesh of Shakespeare if you’re reading him through one lens – and the lens that everybody has been trained to read him through is a white-centric lens.
Professor Farah Karim-Cooper quoted in The Guardian
Her research culminated in The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race, which invites people to read the plays on their own terms in order to broaden the readership of Shakespeare. Professor Karim-Cooper’s work reveals how Shakespeare became more popular during the colonial period, leading to him being considered part of the canon in a way that suited the needs of empire and pushed aside other aspects of his writing and character.
Although Shakespeare’s name is known globally, some of his works are more familiar than others. King’s academics seek ways to bring more of Shakespeare’s work to public audiences, demonstrating the breadth of his writing and its ongoing impact.
King’s research with cultural organisations draws directly and creatively on the Shakespearean past and commissions boldly in the present, encouraging artists to reimagine and innovate in their own practice. This included On Shakespeare’s Sonnets, a collection of 37 new poems created by Dr Crawforth and Dr Scott-Baumann with the Royal Society of Literature, Arden Bloomsbury and the British Council. The collection reached the fourth-bestselling poetry anthology on Amazon.co.uk and the poems featured on Poems on the Underground posters in London.
It really is extraordinary that these sonnets, first published in 1609, can still be engendering such a range of new ideas and ways of expressing them.
The Independent
Dr Crawforth and Dr Scott-Baumann also guest edited the journal Shakespeare Survey 77 with a volume focused solely on Shakespeare’s poems for the first time since its inception in 1948. This special edition highlights how Shakespeare influences contemporary writers and builds on King’s global reputation for Shakespeare expertise.
Another King’s’ collaboration saw innovative short animations created in the ‘Still Shakespeare’ series alongside Film London. The stills were based on Dr Sally Barnden’s research and shown globally at festivals in numerous locations from Mexico to Ukraine.
As with Shakespeare and the British Empire, Shakespeare’s position as the national poet and playwright has been continuously co-opted by other institutions for their own benefit.
Research by Professor McMullan’s reveals how the royal family has cemented its centrality to British life through its connections with Shakespeare. Each has gained value from being associated with the other, which the book explores through analysis of items in the Royal Collection.
The objects addressed offer a unique slice through the Royal Collection – they include books, decorative art objects, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and archival documents – and together provide an unprecedented account of the Collection as a whole, ranging far more widely than is typically the case with publications about the Royal Collection, which tend to focus only on the best-known items.
Professor Gordon McMullan, Professor of English
Shakespeare’s Afterlife in the Royal Collection: Dynasty, Ideology and National Culture is the culmination of the Shakespeare in the Royal Collection (SHaRC) project, between King’s, Birkbeck University of London and the Royal Collection Trust (RCT) which aimed to understand the mutually beneficial relationship between Shakespeare and the royals.
Filmed behind-the-scenes at King’s partner organisation, Shakespeare’s Globe, Dr Emily Rowe rated her top five films based on works by Shakespeare for the King’s Arts & Humanities Instagram and TikTok accounts, which achieved more than 20,000 views. This content brings Shakespeare’s work into the modern day and shows audiences how the Bard is still shaping the stories we consume today.
Dr Rowe also draws attention to retellings and adaptations of Shakespeare’s works across digital media – from film to TV to gaming. Analysis of Juliet and Romeo and series three of The White Lotus evidence how Early Modern plays influence storytelling today, while Dr Rowe’s celebration of Grand Theft Hamlet, set entirely within the world of Grand Theft Auto, shows the universality of Shakespeare’s works, even in contemporary times.
Reader in Early Modern Literature
Senior Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature
Visiting Professor of Shakespeare & Early Modern Studies
Professor of English
Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature
Lecturer in Early Modern Literature
Reader in Early Modern Literature
In the latest Spotlight on Arts & Humanities, we look at the work of Dr Emily Pillinger, who works in the Department of Classics...
