August
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0331 Monday, 13 August 2012
From: BSA <
Date: August 6, 2012 8:56:14 AM EDT
Subject: BSA’s Biannual Magazine ‘Teaching Shakespeare’
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The next two issues of the BSA’s biannual magazine Teaching Shakespeare
The next two issues of Teaching Shakespeare will appear in September 2012 and February 2013. Members of the BSA will receive electronic copies.
Print copies will also be available to members and non-members (£10 for the two issues, postage and packing included). Email
After publication of the third issue, in February 2013, we shall review our policy to decide if we are
able to continue producing both print and digital versions, or whether we shall publish the magazine in a ‘digital-only’ format.
Please help! Here’s how you can help us to keep Teaching Shakespeare in print:
Ask your library or department to purchase print copies of the next two issues (£10 for the two issues, postage and packing included). Email
To read the first issue of Teaching Shakespeare (February 2012), go to the BSA Education Network:
http ://shakespeareineducation . com/
Please spread the word about the BSA, by forwarding this email to any of your contacts
interested in teaching Shakespeare and Shakespeare in Education
With thanks and all good wishes,
James Stredder,
Chair of the Education Committee
The British Shakespeare Association
and
Sarah Olive
Editor
Teaching Shakespeare
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0330 Monday, 13 August 2012
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Monday, August 13, 2012
Subject: I’m Back and Preview of Things to Come
Greeting everyone.
I flew back from Heathrow on Saturday and finally feel caught up on my sleep. Ironically, London was reportedly empty except in the Olympic venues, so I should have stayed a while longer after all. Nevertheless, I had an exhilarating time, visiting with old and new friends and attending some stimulating presentations and performances that I would like to report on in brief once I am caught up with other business.
Also, I am pleased to announce that subscriber Joe Egert has obtained from the Dugdale archives at Merevale Hall (UK) photographs of a Dugdale MS notebook page dated “1634” (Dugdale MS-Vol. VII-p.10), containing Dugdale’s handwritten transcriptions of the Holy Trinity Church epitaphs of (1) William Shakespeare, (2) his wife Anne (d.1623), (3) his daughter Susanna (d.1649), (4) his son-in-law John Hall (d.1635), and (5) his grandaughter’s husband Thomas Nashe (d.1647). These notes formed the basis of the printed versions on page 518 and 520 of Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656). The Dugdale family representative has granted Joe permission to publish these facsimiles online, and he has chosen SHAKSPER as the place those images will reside. I will place these images in the Archives with the notation From the Merevale Archives with the permission of Sir William Dugdale, who retains copyright. I will also create a compilation page with the MS page and I will Photoshop closeups from that page and-or the closeups provided to create a pdf file with all the requisite images and acknowledgement. We all owe Joe Egert and the Merevale Archives thanks for allowing SHAKSPER to distribute and archive these images.
I have a minor eye surgery tomorrow and should have the images ready by Wednesday.
Hardy M. Cook
Editor
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0329 Friday, 3 August 2012
[1] From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
Date: August 2, 2012 2:09:22 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Peer Review
[2] From: Larry Weiss <
Date: August 2, 2012 4:55:47 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Peer Review
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Johnson-DeBaufre <
Date: August 2, 2012 2:09:22 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Peer Review
Gabriel Egan (citing with approval Larry Weiss) writes:
**********
From: Gabriel Egan <
Date: August 2, 2012 4:43:31 AM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Peer
Larry Weiss writes of peer review:
> It would be preferable, however, for referees to
> recuse themselves if they infer the identity of
> the author. Perhaps Gabriel, who wants a pure
> double-blind scheme, will agree.
Agreed. If the anonymity is compromised—either because the referee recognizes the work, or (as with Downs’s case) the author identifies herself—the referee’s opinions should not count. But the obligation to ensure this sort of thing is the editors’, as they must be able to justify the journal’s practices to the publisher and (more importantly) to external audits such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). The referee’s responsibility ends with telling the editors about the loss of anonymity.
Gabriel Egan
**********
In theory this is all well and good, but practically speaking it seems impossible to implement given the way the field of Shakespeare studies is currently structured. Given 1) the relative smallness of the field; 2) the proliferation of various niches within it, which tends to lead to more regular conversation with a smaller number of conversation partners (which is neither good nor bad); 3) the growth of more specialized conferences (a phenomenon at once distinct from and linked to #2); and 4) the reliance of journal editors on referees qualified to assess the merits of scholarship that is produced within this system, given such a structure it becomes rather difficult to argue that referees should recuse themselves if they recognize the work. Were they to do so, editors might quickly find themselves without a sufficient pool of referees able to judge the quality of the work.
Don’t get me wrong: there are many liabilities (John Drakakis has raised several of them) with the present system. But I am not convinced that we can repair it by asking referees to recuse themselves whenever anonymity seems compromised. That will likely lead only to a much slower review process than the terribly slow one that obtains at present, greater burdens on journal editors, increased frustration among non-tenured scholars, and a greater lag-time in the publication schedule.
Cheers,
Eric Johnson-DeBaufre
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
Date: August 2, 2012 4:55:47 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Peer Review
Gabriel replied to my point about recusal with a qualified agreement:
“Agreed. If the anonymity is compromised—either because the referee recognizes the work, or (as with Downs’s case) the author identifies herself—the referee’s opinions should not count. But the obligation to ensure this sort of thing is the editors’, as they must be able to justify the journal’s practices to the publisher and (more importantly) to external audits such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). The referee’s responsibility ends with telling the editors about the loss of anonymity.”
For an editor to make an informed decision about whether or not to replace a proposed reviewer, he should at least be told if she had any involvement with either the paper or its author, and what it is. To say, “I infer that this submission was written by John Smith” is not enough. The reviewer should disclose all facts relating to possible bias—e.g., “I was consulted by Smith about this paper and recommended that he not try to publish it:”; “I assisted Smith in drafting section 2 of the paper and I’m astonished that he did not credit me in a footnote”; “By the way, Smith wrote a negative review of my last book”; or “Smith is an obnoxious little twit and a lousy lay.”
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0328 Friday, 3 August 2012
From: John Drakakis <
Date: August 3, 2012 7:43:30 AM EDT
Subject: SINRS
SINRS ONE-DAY SYMPOSIUM
Renaissance Republicanism
Saturday, 24 November, 2012
School of Arts and Humanities
Pathfoot Building,
University of Stirling
From the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth centuries in England, Scotland, and on the continent of Europe the issue of governance was repeatedly addressed. There has been a tendency in scholarship to reason backwards from the English Revolution and to seek to find evidence for these considerations of various alternatives to monarchy. With the publication of a translation of Aristotle’s The Politics in 1598, and with the already extant publication of the writings of George Buchanan and Bishop John Ponet, in addition to Sir Thomas Smith’s De Republica Anglorum (1572), Hooker’s The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1596), Lewis Lewkenor’s translation of Contarini’s The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599), Bodin’s Sixe Bookes of the Commonwealth (1606), through to Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1639), political theorists were particularly fascinated by the concept of ‘republicanism’. This interest also extended into the drama of the period, with settings in Venice and considerable focus on Roman history. Plays by the likes of Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, and Massinger dramatise elements of the history of Rome and of the Italian city states. In addition to publication and performance, writers such as Fulke Greville circulated their own thoughts on governance, as evidenced in his long poem ‘A Treatise on Monarchy’ (c.1600). In addition, the writings of Machiavelli, Luther, Calvin, and Hobbes all have a significant bearing on this theme.
This symposium aims to investigate the ‘republican’ strain in the political and religious thinking of the period and in artistic representations, and seeks to try to distinguish between ‘republicanism’ as an alternative mode of government and criticism, occasional, and/or developed, directed at absolute monarchy. What we discover may indicate a reformulation of ideas about Renaissance censorship, as well as providing a discriminating insight into some of the ways in which critical, or indeed, subversive thinking was possible during this period.
The seminar will take the form of a series of short papers (15-20 mins) on any aspect of this rich and complicated theme.
Anyone wishing to offer a paper at the Symposium, please email
Dr Angus Vine,
SINRS Symposium,
Division of Literature and Languages,
School of Arts and Humanities,
University of Stirling,
Stirling, FK9 4 LA,
Scotland
There is a fee of £35 for the day which will cover coffee, tea, and buffet lunches. Cheques to be made payable to The University of Stirling.
Call for Papers and Submissions 34th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum Plymouth State University
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.0327 Friday, 3 August 2012
From: Jini Rae Sparkman <
Date: August 2, 2012 11:01:18 AM EDT
Subject: Call for Papers and Submissions 34th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum Plymouth State University
34th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum
Plymouth State University
Plymouth, NH, USA
Friday and Saturday April 19-20, 2013
Call for Papers and Sessions
“Travel, Contact, Exchange”
Keynote speaker: David Simon, Art History, Colby College
We invite abstracts in medieval and Early Modern studies that consider how travel, contact, and exchange functioned in personal, political, religious, and aesthetic realms.
How, when, where, and why did cultural exchange happen?
What are the roles of storytelling or souvenirs in experiences of pilgrimage or Crusade?
What is exchanged, lost, or left behind in moments of contact?
How do such moments of contact and exchange hold meaning today?
Papers need not be confined to the theme but may cover many aspects of medieval and Renaissance life, literature, languages, art, philosophy, theology, history and music.
Students, faculty, and independent scholars are welcome.
Undergraduate student papers or sessions require faculty sponsorship.
For more information visit www.plymouth.edu/medieval
Please submit abstracts and full contact information to Dr. Karolyn Kinane, Director or Jini Rae Sparkman, Assistant Director:
Abstract deadline: Monday January 14, 2013
Presenters and early registration: March 15, 2013
This year’s keynote speaker is David L. Simon. He is Jetté Professor of Art at Colby College, where he has received the Basset Award for excellence in teaching. He holds graduate degrees from Boston University and the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London. Among his publications are the catalogue of Spanish and southern French Romanesque sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters and studies on Romanesque architecture and sculpture in Aragon and Navarra, Spain. He is co-author of recent editions of Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition and Janson’s Basic History of Western Art. Since 2007 he has co-directed an annual summer course and conference on Romanesque art for the University of Zaragoza, Spain.