July
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.329 Monday, 28 July 2014
From: Lois Leveen <
Date: July 17, 2014 at 5:45:51 PM EDT
Subject: Shakespeare-Themed Book Reviews and Course Adoptions
Colleagues,
As some of you know, JULIET’S NURSE is being published by Simon & Schuster this September. It imagines the 14 years leading up to the events in Romeo and Juliet, as told from the pov of the nurse. There is much Shakespeare but also much medieval/Renaissance Italian history woven in, and I’m honored to say the audiences who’ve heard scenes from it (at Shakespeare 450 in Paris, as well as the Kalamazoo Medievalist Congress) have responded quite warmly, and Arthur Little at UCLA has already read the book and given it a lovely blurb.
If any of you do reviews of Shakespeare-themed works, S&S has advanced reader copies available for reviewers. You can request one from Mellony Torres <
In addition, I know a September pub date makes it difficult to consider a book for the 2014-15 school year, but if you use contemporary fiction in any of your classes and think you might want to put JULIET’S NURSE on your syllabus, I think you should be able to request as ARC for consideration. Those requests should go to Megan Reid <
For the rest of you, I’ll let the list know when the book is officially available this autumn.
-Lois Leveen
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.328 Monday, 28 July 2014
From: John Knapp <
Date: July 17, 2014 at 11:53:25 AM EDT
Subject: Lear and Families
Readers of SHAKSPER might be interested in reading Joe Carroll’s essay, “An Evolutionary Approach to Shakespeare’s King Lear” in a recent collection of mine: Critical Insights: Family. Ipswich, MA: Salem P, 2013: 83-103.
John V. Knapp,
Professor of English, Emeritus;
Editor, Style.
Department of English,
Northern Illinois University
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.327 Monday, 28 July 2014
From: Ilaria Natali <
Date: July 22, 2014 at 8:55:54 AM EDT
Subject: CfP: The IASEMS Graduate Conference at The British Institute of Florence
Dear Colleague,
Please find enclosed the CFP for the forthcoming IASEMS (Italian Association of Shakespearean and Early Modern Studies) Graduate Conference at The British Institute of Florence, “Humour in Shakespeare’s Arcadia: Gender, Genre, and Wordplay in Early Modern Comedy”. The conference will take place in Florence (Italy), 23rd April 2015, and is in continuity with the annual Graduate Conference organized by The British Institute of Florence. The deadline for proposals is Friday 31 October 2014.
We hope this event may be of interest to some of you and would be very grateful for circulation or publication of the attached PDF document.
Thank you in advance for your attention,
Ilaria Natali
___________________________
University of Florence, Italy
IASEMS member
IASEMS
Italian Association of Shakespearean and Early Modern Studies
Shakespeare and his Contemporaries
The IASEMS Graduate Conference at The British Institute of Florence
Call for Papers
HUMOUR IN SHAKESPEARE’S ARCADIA:
GENDER, GENRE, AND WORDPLAY IN EARLY MODERN COMEDY
Florence 23rd April 2015
The 2015 IASEMS Graduate Conference at The British Institute in Florence is a one-day interdisciplinary and bilingual English-Italian forum open to PhD students and researchers who have obtained their doctorates within the past 5 years. This year’s conference will focus on the theme of comedy in early modern texts, and on how humour is produced in language and plot, what purposes it serves and how it can be related to issues of gender and genre. From Mikhail Bakhtin’s emphasis on the comic body to more recent explorations of the way erotic desire can be displaced by humour, early modern texts offer endless examples of improvisatory, situational or physical humour (whether deriving from the Elizabethan clown tradition or from the comic counterparts in medieval miracle and mystery plays) as well as sophisticated scripted humour and parody of romantic clichés. As is well known, humour, or “comic relief” can also be found in non-comic texts, such as tragedies, romances, epic poetry or pamphlets, often causing disruption of generic expectations and blurring the lines of genre distinction. Proposals can therefore address, from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives, the impact and the implications of humour or comedic infiltrations in a wide range of early modern English texts.
Candidates are invited to send a description of their proposed contribution according to the following guidelines:
• the candidate should provide name, institution, contact info, title and a short abstract of the proposed contribution (300 words for a 20-minute paper), explaining the content and intended structure of the paper, and including a short bibliography
• abstracts are to be submitted by Friday 31 October 2014 by email to
• all proposals will be blind-vetted. The list of selected papers will be available by the end of November 2014
• each finished contribution is to last no longer than 20 minutes and is to be presented in English (an exception will be made for Italian candidates of departments other than English, who can present papers in Italian): Candidates whose first language is not English will need to have their proposals and final papers checked by a mother-tongue speaker
• participants will be asked to present a final draft of the paper ten days before the Conference.
Selected speakers who are IASEMS members can apply for a small grant (http://www.maldura.unipd.it/iasems/iasems_about.html)
For further information please contact Ilaria Natali (
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.323 Wednesday, 16 July 2014
[1] From: Hugh Grady <
Date: July 15, 2014 at 1:12:47 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
[2] From: Steve Sohmer <
Date: July 15, 2014 at 1:51:12 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
[3] From: Marianne Kimura <
Date: July 16, 2014 at 7:39:23 AM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hugh Grady <
Date: July 15, 2014 at 1:12:47 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
In re: Shakespeare and Science. As someone who has looked into this issue a bit (certainly not exhaustively), I have to say that if any of this pans out I will be very surprised and will have learned something! To me it appears Shakespeare was a steadfast geocentric with an interest in the symbolic meanings of the heavens rather than what we would call “science.” My understanding, too, is that current scholars of early modern science have dropped the term “Scientific Revolution” because anything like a modern scientific worldview took until the late Enlightenment, maybe the nineteenth century, to arrive. Certainly Newton’s interest in alchemy and other strange ideas is an excellent example of what they mean.
Now Donne really did pay attention to the astronomical discoveries (“The Anniversaries,” “Ignatius His Conclave”), but he was extremely skeptical towards them, to say the least. The astronomers (and Columbus!) all end up in Hell along with the founder of the diabolic Jesuits!
Hugh Grady
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Steve Sohmer <
Date: July 15, 2014 at 1:51:12 PM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
Dear Friends,
Thanks to Hardy for the brief on ‘Shakespeare and Science’. Apparently, a little science can be a dangerous thing . . . particularly in the hands of some Shakespeareans.
How au courant was Shakespeare with the latest science? Well, I’ve argued myself hoarse about how well he understood the Gregorian reform, which was a triumph of mathematics and observational astronomy, and touched everyone’s life every single day. The calendar reform was something all the 16th century math wizards tangled with; Shakespeare’s great arithmetician, Michael Cassio, was from Verona (not as the liar Iago puts it, Florence; and the guy’s not married), as were Lilius, Pitati, and a squadron of other math men. But setting that aside . . .
Bear in mind that Leonard Digges is remembered for two (doggerel) poems he contributed (one post-mortem) to the forepages of the first two Folios. Does this suggest Shakespeare and the Diggeses were close? In 1576 Leonard’s dad, Thomas Digges, was first to publish the Copernican theories in English . . . and the first to conceive of space as infinite, which Copernicus did not (and which echoes in Hamlet 2.255ish). Thomas also published Stratioticos in 1579, which was in part based on work by his dad, another Leonard (I wish they wouldn’t do that, it’s so hard to keep them straight). AND Stratioticos was a significant source for Othello (I wrote a paper about Shakespeare’s borrowings from it; if anyone’s interested in that, email me and I’ll dig it out). I think it’s safe to say that Shakespeare was keeping up with the Diggeses.
But here’s the point on which I’d be glad to hear opinions from fellow SHAKSPERs:
In the Folio, Hamlet’s poem to Ophelia reads: “Doubt thou the starres are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move.” Now this has never made sense to me. Because Hamlet has been schooled in Wittenberg and that’s where Rheticus published the first edition of De Revolutionibus . . . and Copernicanism was taught there from at least 1543. So Hamlet knew (a) the stars are fire, and (b) the Sun did not move (or so they thought back then). Ophelia may not have believed the stars were fire, but as a good Catholic she certainly believed the Sun moved around the Earth every day.
On the other hand, in the cockamamie Q1 Hamlet the poem begins “Doubt that in earth is fire, Doubt that the starres doe moue” which, of course, makes no sense at all. But the appearance of Earth in the first line is intriguing. I don’t think the recorder would have thrown in the Earth if it weren’t somewhere in the Hamlet’s poem.
My hunch is Shakespeare wrote: “Doubt that the starres are fire, Doubt that the Earth does move.” This would make excellent sense coming from a post-Copernican Protestant boy from Wittenberg . . . writing to a Catholic girl (who’s ordered to a nunnery and imagines her dead father on a pilgrimage).
My hunch is that’s what Shakespeare wrote: “Doubt that the Earth does move.” Pure Copernicanism.
If so, why did he change it to that silly Sun-move business in his Q2 rewrite? My guess: it was way over the head of the groundlings who didn’t know Copernicus from cupcakes. Or the guys in the tiring house fell to arguing about which goes around what. Or maybe some over-serious Christian folks accused him of blasphemy. After all, the Bible says the Earth cannot be moved and the Sun hasteth, etc.
Anyone want to weigh in on this?
All the best,
Steve
[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Marianne Kimura <
Date: July 16, 2014 at 7:39:23 AM EDT
Subject: Re: SHAKSPER: Shakespeare and Science
Dear Editor,
“Was Shakespeare Aware of the Scientific Discoveries of His Time?”
I was absolutely delighted to read the article by Megan Gambino about Dan Falk’s new book on Shakespeare and Science. I completely agree with the premise of the book, i.e. “that the Bard was mindful of the developments happening in astronomy during his day and, in fact, used them as fodder in his plays.”
May I just add another name to the list? (Perhaps it is a name in Dan Falk’s book, but it was not mentioned in the article). The name is ‘Giordano Bruno’ (1648-1600), who used Copernicus’ heliocentric model to develop a “thermodynamic” (“Copernican Diagrams, Hilary Gatti, page 51 in her book Essays on Giordano Bruno) model of planetary movement Thus Bruno writes in De Immenso III,iii: “The Earth, in the infinite universe, is not at the centre, except in so far as everything can be said to be at the centre. In this chapter it is explained that the Earth is not central amongst the planets. That place is reserved for the Sun, for it is natural for the planets to turn towards its light and heat, and accept its law” (quoted in The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno, Paul Henri Michel, page 181)
Bruno starts Lo Spaccio della besta trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast) with these lines: “He is blind who does not see the sun, foolish who does not recognize it, ungrateful who is not thankful unto it, since so great is the light, so great the good, so great the benefit, through which it glows, through which it serves, the teacher of
the senses, the father of substances, the author of life.” (from A. Imerti’s translation)
The Smithsonian article also contains the line: “You have Romeo and Juliet analyzing the rising Sun”. Indeed, in my analysis, the line “Juliet is the sun” identifies Juliet as “the sun” in a historical play about mankind and fuel (man starts out using only solar energy, then makes the transition to fossil fuels (“Romeo and Juliet” starts out with lines about coal, which are rather negative about coal (“Gregory, on my word, we won’t carry coals”), then man returns to the sun as primary fuel again.
The word “energy” didn’t yet exist as a scientific word as we use it today, but Bruno’s understanding of the importance of the sun’s “light and heat”, or its role as “the father of substances, the author of life” squares with the way I think we should understand the line “Juliet is the sun”—as, basically, energy.
It is Hamlet’s father who says “Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres..” and here, also I believe Shakespeare is referring to Giordano Bruno’s heretical idea that the spheres were nonsense (since Bruno posited an infinite universe, whereas Copernicus retained
the spheres in his heliocentric model). It is worth noting that Juliet’s eyes are also compared to stars that have left their spheres: “Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes, to twinkle in their spheres till they return.” Therefore “leaving” the spheres could be a kind of coded reference to the idea of “leaving” the old astronomical ideas.
Why did Shakespeare hide the Brunian ideas by using double meanings and veiled or cloaked references? It was simply because Bruno was imprisoned for heresy in 1591 and executed in 1600. But my research shows that Shakespeare upheld Bruno’s ideas: “Hero” is the name of the lady falsely accused and who “dies” until people come around to seeing her blamelessness. Malvolio is subjected to a mock religious inquisition, complete with a question about the Pythagorean concept of the souls, as was Bruno.
My paper on the sun (solar energy) and “Hamlet” was recently published by the Area Studies Journal of the University of Tsukuba. It is entitled “’Stand and Unfold Yourself’: Prince Hamlet Unmasked”. It is also at my academia site and slideshare site (and I presented it at the Societe Francais Shakespeare 450 conference in Paris this April). In it, I address the theory of Peter Usher, who comes so close to figuring out the puzzle—but neglects Bruno and focuses on Copernicus.
Shakespeare focused on Bruno, rather.
Marianne Kimura
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 25.322 Tuesday, 15 July 2014
From: Hardy M. Cook <
Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Subject: Another Hiatus and Update on Volunteers
Dear All,
I am leaving early Friday morning, June 18th, for another ten days without Internet access in western Massachusetts. I’ll be home on June 28th and then on June 30th I leave for the UK for a couple of weeks of theater and the ISC. I will have the Internet in England and will edit SHAKSPER from London and Stratford.
On a related note, my call for volunteers has lead to a number of promising responses.
Here is how things stand at this point:
Position Filled: Shakespeare on the Internet Guide has not been updated in about five years. Someone has been recruited to update it and its links and will be working on it this summer: <http://shaksper.net/scholarly-resources/shakespeare-on-the-internet>
Position Filled: Shakespeare Spinoffs/Character Bibliography: These lists (found in the Reference files section of Scholarly Resources) were very popular during the early days of SHAKSPER but have not been updated since around the late 1990s. Someone has shared her list of similar titles with me to be combined with the existing lists, and is working on producing an up-to-date list for us. <http://shaksper.net/scholarly-resources/reference-files>
Position Filled: Shakespeare Plays and Festivals: I started this last summer from available resources. When I was a contributing editor to the Shakespeare Newsletter I compiled a similar list for some years. Someone has volunteered. We have a US list of festivals mounted and she is working on adding to it. <http://shaksper.net/scholarly-resources/shakespeare-festivals-and-plays>
Seeking Interested Person/s: Pedagogy: Teaching Resources: At present, this section of the web site contains only resources that I have used or made available. Pedagogy is a hot topic. I would like to recruit someone as an Assistant/Coordinating Editors who would be in charge of developing further this section of the web site: <http://shaksper.net/scholarly-resources/pedagogy-teaching-resources> Is anyone interested?
Preliminary Interest Expressed but would probably work best as a Panel: SHAKSPER Roundtable Discussions: I found these very interesting at the time but they did involve a tremendous amount of work. Again, if anyone is interested either for a single Roundtable or to act as an assistant editor in charge of this area, pleases let me know. However, these are for positions for established academics current with research in the discipline. <http://shaksper.net/scholarly-resources/roundtable-discussions>
Desperately Seeking Coordinator and Possible Panel Members: The SHAKSPER Book Reviews has been fallow for sometime now through no one’s fault. There is a Book Review Panel and I am looking for anyone who might wish to take the initiative and revitalize it. If the person would be interested in a limited commitment that is fine, but someone is interested in a long-term commitment of more than a year, I would offer the position as a Coordinating Editor.
I am now most interested in getting a Assistant/Coordinating Editor to get the Book Review Panel operating again. However, if you are interested in it, it is a peer-reviewed panel and I would only appoint someone who has submitted me a Brief CV and email expressing interest. We already have excellent Panel members but we have stalled on getting a coordinator. This is a time-limited commitment but does require periodic work coordinating submissions and Panel responses. We have many form letters already developed, so you would not be starting cold and I will give you the names of former coordinators should you volunteer. This is the kind of appointment from which I would look for an Associate Editor to take over editing from me when I am away. I am also interested in seeking possible Panel Members and would also require a brief CV and email expressing an interest.
For those of you who have volunteered: I am grateful for those who have taken on the projects listed above.
I am currently working through responses from other volunteers and welcome anyone else who is interested.
Hardy