Announcements
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.130 Wednesday, 20 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Subject: Yahoo E-Mail Accounts
Dear Subscribers,
Over the past few days, more than a dozen Yahoo e-mail accounts stopped accepting mailings from SHAKSPER, and I have had to delete those accounts.
Is there anyone out there who has a clue about what is going on with Yahoo?
Also, should you know anyone who subscribes to SHAKSPER with a Yahoo account, please inform those people that their Yahoo accounts are not accepting SHAKSPER, and I have had to delete their accounts.
Thanks,
Hardy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.129 Wednesday, 20 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: March 20, 2019 at 7:11:08 AM EDT
Subject: Armenian Shakespeare Association International Conference
http://www.armenianshakespeare.org
The Third ASA International Conference
Venice, Italy
Sunday 14 and Monday 15th July 2019
The Armenian Shakespeare Association (ASA) is delighted to invite Shakespearean scholars, translators, theatre critics, directors, actors and research students across the world to its third international conference in Venice.
“Shakespeare and Venice: Between the Crossroads of East and West”
Dedicated to the 130th Anniversary of Shakespearean Actor
Vahram Papazian (1888-1968)
The Armenian Shakespeare Association (ASA) invites Shakespearean scholars, translators, theatre critics and research students across the world to its third international conference. The conference is organised with the support of His Holiness Archbishop Boghos Lévon Zékiyan and the Mekhitarist Fathers in Venice.
Confirmed keynote speakers and academics from Taiwan, Japan, India, USA, UK, Poland, Serbia, Romania, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, the Middle East, Armenia etc.
Visit to the historical island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni and tour of the hidden treasures of Venice, social and cultural programme
The conference takes place at Collegio Armeno Moorat-Raphael situated at Palazzo Ca'Zenobio in the centre of Venice - an impressive baroque style palace built in 1690 - not far from “Othello’s House”. Among numerous prominent Armenians of the past 150 years, actor-director-writer Vahram Papazian – to whom the conference is dedicated – also studied here as a young man. Guided tour of the island San Lazzaro degli Armeni (situated in the Venetian lagoon, few minutes ride from St. Marco station by vaporetto) is offered to participants. Monastery San Lazzaro is the home of Mekhitarist Fathers since 1717 housing an extraoridanry international art collection, library of ancient manuscripts and functioning Armenian Church. We have also arranged a tour of ‘the hidden’ gems of Venice with a resident architect.
Papers should fit in one of the following seminars:
- ‘The Outsiders of Venice’: Othello and The Merchant of Venice in adaptations across countries
- ‘Shakespeare and/in Exile’: through civil wars, autocracies and censorships of past or present
- ‘Shakespeare in Arts’: cinematographic, music, ballet and literary creations inspired by the Bard
- ‘Translating Shakespeare’: linguistic, geographic and poetic trials (translators particularly welcome)
- ‘Shakespearean Collections’: public and private libraries, research centres and digital collections
- ‘Shakespeare and the Venetian Myth’: the truth and the fantasy, ‘Shakespeare and Italy’: round table (open to suggestions)
Please send your abstract of 300 words, application form and fee of £80 via PayPal link before the new deadline, 30 March 2019. For any questions please contact ASA:
For all inquiries contact:
NEW APPLICATION DEADLINE: 30th March 2019
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.116 Thursday, 14 March 2019
From: Michele Marrapodi <
Date: March 13, 2019 at 5:01:17 PM EDT
Subject: Book Announcement: The Routledge Research Companion to Anglo-Italian Renaissance Literature and Culture
Dear Shaksperians,
I am pleased to announce the publication of “The Routledge Research Companion to Anglo-Italian Renaissance Literature and Culture” (Routledge, 2019, 528 pp., 9781472410733).
The aim of this Companion volume is to provide scholars and advanced graduate students with a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research work on Anglo-Italian Renaissance studies. Written by a team of international scholars and experts in the field, the chapters are grouped into two large areas of influence and intertextuality, corresponding to the dual way in which early modern England looked upon the Italian world from the English perspective – Part 1: "Italian literature and culture" and Part 2: "Appropriations and ideologies". In the first part, prominent Italian authors, artists, and thinkers are examined as a direct source of inspiration, imitation, and divergence. The variegated English response to the cultural, ideological, and political implications of pervasive Italian intertextuality, in interrelated aspects of artistic and generic production, is dealt with in the second part. Constructed on the basis of a largely interdisciplinary approach, the volume offers an in-depth and wide-ranging treatment of the multifaceted ways in which Italy’s material world and its iconologies are represented, appropriated, and exploited in the literary and cultural domain of early modern England. For this reason, contributors were asked to write essays that not only reflect current thinking but also point to directions for future research and scholarship, while a purposefully conceived bibliography of primary and secondary sources and a detailed index round off the volume.
Reviews
“This wide-ranging collection brings together the best current work in Anglo-Italian studies and forecasts future developments. Theoretically sophisticated and intellectually rigorous, the essays here treat major and minor figures, works, and genres, all the while illuminating hidden movements and cross-currents in literature, history, theology, and other disciplines. The volume, in toto, documents the reciprocal circulation of energies that powered both the Italian and English Renaissances. Prof. Marrapodi’s international team of distinguished contributors and bright new voices will inspire and guide scholarly conversations for a long time to come.”
--Robert S. Miola, Gerard Manley Hopkins Professor of English / Lecturer in Classics Loyola University Maryland
“Reading this new collection, one is taken aback by how extensive and profound the cultural conversation between early modern Italy and England actually was. Preceded by a deeply researched introduction by Michele Marrapodi, the essays manage to anatomize this dauntingly complex field afresh and rethink familiar figures and configurations while adding a host of unfamiliar ones. What emerges is not just the one-way traffic of “influence” but dynamic and layered exchanges both within and between two separate cultures and cultural moments. It is equally good at recounting the Italian rediscovery of ancient figures, such as Seneca and Lucretius (long prior to their English impact), as it is at exploring original Italian cultural inventions such as courtliness, "civil conversation", and reason of state."
-- John Gillies, Professor in Literature, University of Essex
“In this ambitious and extraordinarily useful volume, ably assembled by Michele Marrapodi, distinguished senior and junior scholars from Italy, Great Britain, and North America revisit the crucial questions surrounding the influence of Italy, its literature and its culture on England in the age of Shakespeare. Among the volume’s many virtues are its double focus on the original Italian texts and contexts and their appropriation, transformation, and re-visioning in English hands. Equally admirable is its revisitation of the multiple still-valid acquisitions of past scholarship, even while defining the current “state of the field” and its future possibilities. Finally, while the volume’s primary inspiration is literary and especially theatrical, it demonstrates a laudable commitment to probing the “mobilities,” ambiguities, and political-ideological-religious investments that inform the complex processes of cultural transmission.”
--Albert Russell Ascoli, President, Dante Society of America, Terrill Distinguished Professor, Department of Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
For a complete description and contents, please visit the Routledge website:
https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Research-Companion-to-Anglo-Italian-Renaissance-Literature/Marrapodi/p/book/9781472410733
Michele Marrapodi
University of Palermo, Italy.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.113 Wednesday, 13 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Subject: Possible Lost Submissions
Dear Subscribers,
I accidentally deleted a bunch of files in, my Editor account. I have tried to recover all of today’s submissions; but if you do not see a message you sent, please resend it.
Apologies,
Hardy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.113 Wednesday, 13 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Subject: Possible Lost Submissions
Dear Subscribers,
I accidentally deleted a bunch of files in, my Editor account. I have tried to recover all of today’s submissions; but if you do not see a message you sent, please resend it.
Apologies,
Hardy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.110 Tuesday, 12 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: March 12, 2019 at 9:22:19 AM EDT
Subject: Shakespeare Between the World Wars
https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137590633
Shakespeare Between the World Wars
The Anglo-American Sphere
By Robert Sawyer
Shakespeare Between the World Wars draws parallels between Shakespearean scholarship, criticism, and production from 1920 to 1940 and the chaotic years of the Interwar era. The book begins with the scene in Hamlet where the Prince confronts his mother, Gertrude. Just as the closet scene can be read as a productive period bounded by devastation and determination on both sides, Robert Sawyer shows that the years between the World Wars were equally positioned. Examining performance and offering detailed textual analyses, Sawyer considers the re-evaluation of Shakespeare in the Anglo-American sphere after the First World War. Instead of the dried, barren earth depicted by T. S. Eliot and others in the 1920s and 1930s, this book argues that the literary landscape resembled a paradoxically fertile wasteland, for just below the arid plain of the time lay the seeds for artistic renewal and rejuvenation which would finally flourish in the later twentieth century.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.109 Tuesday, 12 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: March 11, 2019 at 8:42:36 AM EDT
Subject: Shakespeare’s Globe Archives Online
https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2019/shakespeares-globe-makes-archives-available-online/
Shakespeare’s Globe makes archives available online
Shakespeare’s Globe has digitised its archive for the first time, including rarely seen items such as annotated scripts and show reports from more than 200 productions.
The archive goes back to Sam Wanamaker’s initial vision for the London theatre and details the venue’s construction as well as containing material from across the first 20 years.
These include prompt books, wardrobe notes, music, photographs and programmes, and are intended to give researchers “unprecedented access to the history of Shakespeare’s Globe”.
Highlights include oral histories from figures including Mark Rylance and Zoe Wanamaker as well as front-of-house show reports detailing audience behaviour at thousands of performances since the Globe opened in 1997.
The project is a collaboration between the Globe and academic source publisher Adam Matthew Digital, which provides primary sources for teaching and research.
Farah Karim-Cooper, head of higher education and research at the Globe, said: “Academic research is increasingly preoccupied with performance history and practice, so we’re delighted that the Globe’s important and exciting performance archive, showcasing our experimental theatremaking over the last 20 years, can now be accessed by scholars and student around the world thanks to the work of Adam Matthew Digital.”
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.101 Sunday, 10 March 2019
From: Al Magary <
Date: March 8, 2019 at 3:13:30 PM EST
Subject: Shakespeare Census
Dear all,
We are very pleased to announce the launch of the new Shakespeare Census <www.shakespearecensus.org>. The Shakespeare Census is a database that attempts to locate and describe all extant copies of all editions of Shakespeare’s works through 1700 (excluding the four folio editions).
The Shakespeare Census enables new work in book history, bibliography, and the reception of Shakespeare’s works, revealing copy-specific information that has been “hiding in plain sight”. It promotes scholarly discussion and collaborative research by assigning each copy a unique identifier (the SC number). Over time, details will continue be added about each copy, including its condition, binding, marginalia, and provenance, along with a bibliography of scholarship discussing that specific copy. Currently the Shakespeare Census includes 1752 copies, and there are certainly more to be located. Many copies are not in Henrietta Bartlett’s Census or ESTC.
We invite you to explore the site and to contribute to it by alerting us to copies not yet listed, by contributing copy-specific information, and by identifying scholarship to be added to the copy-specific bibliography.
We are especially interested in hearing from librarians, collectors, and dealers who know of copies that should be in the database but aren’t. If you curate a collection that includes copies covered by the Census, we will set up a Librarian account for you so you can submit your copies and edit their details directly into the database. If you are a collector or dealer and know of privately held copies, please get in touch as well. We are eager to include these and are happy to anonymize as needed.
We hope the Shakespeare Census will be an exciting new resource for your work!
Sincerely,
Zachary Lesser, University of Pennsylvania
Adam G. Hooks, University of Iowa
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.094 Thursday, 7 March 2019
From: John F. Andrews <
Date: March 6, 2019 at 6:53:50 PM EST
Subject: Spring Attractions from the Shakespeare Guild
_____________________________________
A Special Evening with the Extraordinary Jim Dale
Wednesday, March 13, at 7 p.m.
The Players
16 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan
Free, but Reservations Required
In the 1950s and '60s, Jim Dale was known primarily as a singer and songwriter, composing such hits as the theme song for “Georgy Girl,” which was nominated for an Academy Award. Meanwhile he was garnering plaudits as a film and television comic, with eleven Carry On features that made him a celebrity in Britain. Next came stage roles like Autolycus and Bottom with Olivier’s National Theatre Company, and Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s Oliver. In 1980 Mr. Dale collected a Tony Award for his outstanding performance in the title role in Barnum. Since then he has been nominated for Tony, Drama Desk, and other honors for his work in plays such as Candide, Joe Egg, Me and My Girl, and Scapino. And he's earned two Grammy Awards as the “voice” of Harry Potter. We look forward to a memorable gathering with one of the most versatile artists in entertainment history.
_____________________________________
Speaking of Shakespeare with Director Ethan McSweeny
Thursday, March 14, at 8 p.m.
The National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan
Free, but Reservations Requested
A director whose productions have been lauded by leading critics as “daring” and “impeccably stylish,” Ethan McSweeny has recently accepted a new position as Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia, where he’ll be reviving Elizabethan and Jacobean classics in a beautiful replica of London’s storied Blackfriars playhouse. Mr. McSweeny has earned eight Helen Hayes Awards for his work at the Shakespeare Theatre Company and other venues in Washington. He has also directed in such settings as the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the Stratford Festival in Ontario. In 2000 his Broadway revival of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man won Drama Desk and Outer Circle accolades and was nominated for a Tony Award. Please join us for a lively conversation with the artist American Theatre has lauded as a “wunderkind with a Midas touch.”
_____________________________________
The Ides of March at Edwin Booth's Final Home
Friday, March 15, at 2 p.m.
The Players
16 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan
Free, but Reservations Required
As part of a new Afternoon Salon series for NAC members and their friends, the Guild has arranged a special tour of the historic club that adjoins it on Gramercy Park South. Our guide will be Raymond Wemmlinger, who oversees the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library and presides over the Players Foundation. Ray is an authority on America’s foremost acting family, and he’ll show us playbills, costumes, portraits, and other artifacts from the legendary Edwin Booth, who lived in this elegant building from 1888 until his death in 1893. In Edwin’s bedroom we’ll see a photograph of John Wilkes Booth, who restaged a “lofty scene” from Julius Caesar five months after he, Edwin, and Junius Brutus Booth the younger (named after their famous father) had presented that Roman tragedy as a benefit for the Shakespeare Statue that now adorns Central Park.
______________________________________
You may reserve for these events with an email to
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.093 Thursday, 7 March 2019
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Thursday, March 7, 2019
Subject: Priming the Pump
Dear Subscribers,
For the past many months, the thread The Shakespeare Canon and NOS has dominated discussions on SHAKSPER.
Some are delighted in this, while others are frustrated with it.
The bottom line is that I can only work with what I receive that is eligible for posting to the list.
If you wish to see other topics explored, you will need to initiate a thread.
So long as the topic is not about Lord Votemort (i.e., he who shall not be named), it is probably acceptable.
So, I encourage subscribers to think about topics they would like to see discussed on SHAKSPER and start a thread.
Also, I encourage reviews of productions and books as well as inquiries and announcements.
SHAKSPER belongs to its subscribers. I am merely an editorial conduit through which content is distributed.
Thank you,
Hardy
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 30.089 Tuesday, 5 March 2019
From: Helen M Ostovich <
Date: March 4, 2019 at 10:40:42 PM EST
Subject: BOOK NOTICE: Dancing Queen: Marie de Médicis’ Ballets at the Court of Henri IV
BOOK NOTICE: Dancing Queen: Marie de Médicis’ Ballets at the Court of Henri IV (University of Toronto Press, 2019; ISBN 978-1487503666).
Dear Shakespeareans interested in dance:
I am delighted to forward this announcement of the publication of my colleague Melinda Gough's book Dancing Queen: Marie de Médicis’ Ballets at the Court of Henri IV (University of Toronto Press, 2019; ISBN 978-1487503666).
Drawing on newly discovered primary sources as well as theories and methodologies derived from literary studies, political history, musicology, dance studies, and women’s and gender studies, Dancing Queen traces how Queen Marie de Médicis’ ballets authorized her incipient political authority through innovative verbal and visual imagery, avant-garde musical developments, and ceremonial arrangements of objects and bodies in space. Making use of women’s “semi-official” status as political agents, Marie’s ballets also manipulated the subtle social and cultural codes of international courtly society in order to more deftly navigate rivalries and alliances both at home and abroad. At times the queen’s productions could challenge Henri IV’s immediate interests, contesting the influence enjoyed by his mistresses or giving space to implied critiques of official foreign policy, for example. Such defenses of Marie’s own position, though, took shape as part of a larger governmental program designed to promote the French consort queen’s political authority not in its own right but as a means of maintaining power for the new Bourbon monarchy in the event of Henri IV’s untimely death.
For more information, or to order the book, please click here.
Dr H M Ostovich <
Founding Editor, Early Theatre <http://earlytheatre.org/>
Professor Emerita, English and Cultural Studies
McMaster University