The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0474  Friday, 4 September 2009

From:       Harry Keyishian <
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Date:       Thursday, 3 Sep 2009 12:03:08 -0400
Subject:    Annual Shakespeare Colloquium at Fairleigh Dickinson 
University 24 October

"Colloquium on Shakespeare and Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson 
University, Saturday, October 24 2009"

Shakespeare and Philosophy is the topic of the 17th annual Shakespeare 
Colloquium to be held at the Madison, NJ campus of Fairleigh Dickinson 
University on Saturday, October 24, 2009. Topics will include the ways 
material objects empower new ways of thinking in Shakespeare, the 
importance of the art of lying in Shakespeare, whether and why we are 
moved by Shakespearean tragedy, and how German philosophers made a 
masterpiece of _Hamlet_.

Speakers will be Hugh Grady (Arcadia College), Eric Johnson-Debaufre, 
Paul Kottman (The New School), and Andrew Majeske (John Jay College). 
The Colloquium will take place from 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. in Room S-11 
(Sturchio Hall), Science Building. The program is free of charge and 
open to the public. . Room S-11 is handicapped-accessible and physical 
assistance will be provided for those who require it.

New Jersey teachers may receive Professional Development credit by 
attending. For further information, call 973-443-8711 or contact 
Colloquium Coordinator Harry Keyishian at 
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  or at 
the Department of Literature, Languages, Writing, and Philosophy 
M-MS3-01, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison NJ 07940.

The program begins at 9:30 with  Eric Johnson-Debaufre's presentation 
"That Obscure Desire of Objects: Subject and Object in _Hamlet_." Dr. 
Johnson-Debaufre will discuss the powerful role played by Yorick's skull 
in shaping Hamlet's changing cognition about death and subjectivity, and 
the ways material objects and physical contact with them actually enable 
new and/or previously unavailable forms of thinking in Shakespeare. Eric 
Johnson-DeBaufre holds a Ph.D. from Boston University. He has written 
for the online journal _CounterPunch_ and for _Medieval and Renaissance 
Drama in England_, and has taught at Luther College and Fairleigh 
Dickinson University.

At 10:45 Professor Andrew Majeske will discuss "Literature, Law, and the 
Art of Lying" in relation to _Measure for Measure_ and _As You Like It_, 
where the playwright deals directly with the education of future rulers 
in the art of deception-both committing it, and learning to see through 
it. Andrew Majeske is an Associate Professor of English at John Jay 
College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) where he teaches Literature and Law, 
Shakespeare, and Medieval & Renaissance Literature in the English 
Department. In addition to his PhD in literature, with an emphasis in 
Classics, from UC Davis, Professor Majeske has a JD from Loyola 
University of Chicago School of Law. Before returning to the academy, he 
practiced law for 11 years. He is the author of _Equity in English 
Renaissance Literature_ (2006) and editor of _Justice, Women, and Power 
in English Renaissance Drama_ (2009).

Lunch will be available at the campus dining hall from 12:00 to1:00 p.m.

At 1:00 Professor Paul A. Kottman, discussing "Tragic Conditions in 
Shakespeare," will ask whether we are still moved by Shakespeare, and if 
so, why? And how?  If our typical responses to tragic events -- grief, 
or fear and pity -- shed light on the collective stakes of those events, 
then what do Shakespeare's tragedies say about what we mean to one 
another?  In what ways might Shakespeare force us to move beyond the 
classical (Aristotelian, Sophoclean) ways of thinking about tragedy and 
social life?  Paul A. Kottman is Assistant Professor of Comparative 
Literature at the New School, where he teaches at Eugene Lang College, 
the New School for Liberal Arts, and in Liberal Studies at the New 
School for Social Research. He is the author of _Tragic Conditions in 
Shakespeare_ (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009) and _A Politics of 
the Scene_ (Stanford University Press, 2008) and the editor of 
_Philosophers on Shakespeare_ (Stanford University Press, 2009). He has 
also translated two books by the Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero, 
_Relating Narratives_ (Routledge, 2000) and _For More Than One Voice_ 
(Stanford University Press, 2005). He is currently working on a book 
project, tentatively entitled "On Love and the Social." The recipient of 
a Solmsen post-doctoral fellowship and a grant from the Mellon 
foundation, his writing has appeared in _The Oxford Literary Review_, 
_Shakespeare Studies_, _Theatre Journal_, _The Journal of Cultural and 
Religious Studies_ and the _Revue Internationale de Philosophie_.

In the final presentation, starting at 2:15, Professor Hugh Grady speaks 
on "Aesthetics and Subjectivity in _Hamlet_: From Classical Aesthetics 
to Postmodernism." Professor Grady will note how late eighteenth- and 
early nineteenth-century Germany discourse on Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ was 
complexly interconnected with the great literary and philosophical 
revolutions that produced German Idealist philosophy and German 
Romanticism -- and much of the content of aesthetic theory. These 
changes resulted in _Hamlet_'s rise to world stature, transforming it 
from the great if flawed masterpiece of the English national poet to 
perhaps the greatest masterpiece of world literature. Hugh Grady is 
Professor of English at Arcadia University. He has published extensively 
in the field of Shakespeare studies, with some 35 journal and anthology 
articles, four monographs, and two critical anthologies. His newest 
book, _Shakespeare and Impure Aesthetics_, has just been published by 
Cambridge University Press. His previous books include _Shakespeare, 
Machiavelli, and Montaigne: Power and Subjectivity from Richard II to 
Hamlet_ (2002), _Shakespeare's Universal Wolf: Studies in Early Modern 
Reification_ (1996), and _The Modernist Shakespeare: Critical Texts in a 
Material World_ (1991). He has edited and contributed to the critical 
anthologies _Presentist Shakespeares_ (2006, co-edited with Terence 
Hawkes) and _Shakespeare and Modernity: Early Modern to Millennium_ (2000).

These colloquia are made possible by grants from the Columbia University 
Seminar on Shakespeare and by voluntary donations.
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