CALL FOR PAPERS: Shakespearean Communities

University of Portsmouth, 14th-16th April 2016

To mark the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the Centre for Studies in Literature and the Centre for European and International Studies Research at the University of Portsmouth are holding a conference on ‘Shakespearean Communities’ celebrating Shakespeare’s life, work and influence. A wealth of scholarship has explored Shakespeare and his contemporary world, where communities were being created, contested and redefined. The persecution of religious minorities, the discovery of the new world, the growing importance of the mercantile class and the spread of the printed text, tested and redrew ideas of community and fellowship. Subsequently, too, Shakespeare’s work has provoked and created new communities of audience and performers in a variety of formats, from the stage to the text to the screen. Indeed, Shakespeare continues to provide different ways in which academics and theatre practitioners can work with communities. The conference organisers, from the English Literature and History Departments at Portsmouth, aim to bring together scholars working on various aspects of Shakespeare’s - or Shakespearean - communities, to reassess the ways in which community helps us to think about/reassess the legacy of his work. Confirmed keynote speakers are Professor John Drakakis, Professor Russell Jackson and Dr Felicity Heal.

The conference is open to scholars at all academic stages and those working from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (Literature, History, Adaptation, Film Studies and beyond). We would also welcome submissions from theatre and visual art practitioners with an interest in ‘Shakespearean Communities’.

 We invite delegates to submit abstracts on all aspects of this theme, including but not restricted to:

• Early Modern Theatrical Communities
• Local Communities in Shakespeare’s England
• Religious Communities
• Legal communities
• National and/or ethnic communities
• Textual communities
• Communities of family and friendship
• Writing Communities: Shakespeare’s influence & afterlives
• Artists and Illustrators of Shakespeare
• Acting Communities: Performers of Shakespeare, past & present 

Please submit proposals of 250-300 words for papers of no more than 20 minutes to Dr Jessica Dyson, Dr Katy Gibbons, Dr Fiona McCall and Dr Bronwen Price at shakespearean-communities@port.ac.uk by 31st January 2016.

Thanks to the generosity of the Society for Renaissance Studies, some assistance for postgraduate / unsalaried postdoc travel expenses is available.

King's Shakespeare Festival 2016

Throughout 2016, the London Shakespeare Centre will present talks, debates, performances, film screenings and much more, as part of Shakespeare 400, a consortium of leading cultural, creative and educational institutions in and around London, together creating a season of events during 2016 to celebrate four hundred years of Shakespeare.

The London Shakespeare Centre is one of the many Research Centres supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Institute (AHRI).

3 February - 29 May
By Me William ShakespeareAn exhibition, co-curated by The National Archives and the London Shakespeare Centre at King's, exploring what Shakespeare's will and other unique documents tell us about Shakespeare.
Inigo Rooms, Somerset House East Wing

Thursday 11 - Sunday 14 February 2016
King's Shakespeare Festival Weekend

11 February, 19.00-20.30
On Shakespeare's Sonnets - A Poets' Celebration
An evening to celebrate the publication of the anthology, On Shakespeare's Sonnets: A Poets' Celebration, edited by Hannah Crawforth and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann, with poems by Carol Ann Duffy, Paul Muldoon, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott and many others.
Great Hall, King's Building, Strand Campus

11 February, 20.30-21.30
A Celebration of Shakespeare in 20th Century Music Ashley Riches (baritone) and Emma Abbate (piano) perform a selection of Shakespeare songs.
Strand Campus

12 February, 17.00-18.00
Remembering and forgetting in 1916: the Shakespeare Tercentenary and the First World War
A lecture by Professor Gordon McMullan, Director of the London Shakespeare Centre
Strand Campus

12 February, 18.00-19.00
Digital Shakespeare
In this talk Jonathan Hope, Professor of Literary Linguistics at Strathclyde University, explores how simple digital techniques can confirm, and challenge, things we think we know about Shakespeare, through analysis of the texts.
Strand Campus

12 February, 19.30-20.30
The Year of Shakespeare: The Writing Life
A Q&A with renowned Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, in conversation with Gordon McMullan
Strand Campus

Saturday 13 February, 13.00-15.00
Domestic Shakespeare: Lecture and Performance Workshop
A lecture by Lena Cowen Orlin, on 'The Second-Best Bed' followed by an exploration by professional actors and King's academics of the glimpses we see of Shakespeare's life through the brief records he left behind.
Strand Campus

13 February, 15.00-16.00
Still Shakespeare: Artists' Short Animations
A presentation of five artists' short animated films, in development, inspired by Shakespeare's mst famous plays. Presented by Film London
Strand Campus

13 February, 16.00-17.00
Making Hamlet New
Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor describe the critical reception their original edition provoked. Their talk will be illustrated by actors performing excerpts from the play in its various texts.
Strand Campus

13 February, 17.00-18.30
States of mind: Tom O'Bedlam and Early Modern Attitudes to Mental Health
A multidisciplinary reflection on the character Tom O'Bedlam in song, history and lived experience.
Strand Campus

13 February, 19.00-20.00
Marjorie Garber: Desperately Seeking Shakespeare
Acclaimed Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber talks about the quest to find something about Shakespeare that would explain his astonishing accomplishment.
Strand Campus

13 February, 20.00-21.00
'I love a ballad' - Shakespeare Songs in the 19th Century
An evening of song and scholarship with Oskar Cox Jensen.
Council Room, Strand Campus

14 February, 15.00-17.00
Shakespeare's Sister Performance
A staged reading of a new play by Emma Whipday imagining the problems that would face a woman playwright in Shakespeare's London, marking publication of the play by Samuel French.
Strand Campus

14 February, 18.00-19.00
David Scott Kastan: Shakespeare's Will A lecture by renowned Shakespearean and Yale Professor Kastan reflecting on the materials in the 'By Me William Shakespeare' exhibition.
Strand Campus

14 February, 19.30-21.00
Simon Russell Beale in Conversation
Acclaimed Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale in conversation with Sonia Massai
Strand Campus
Beyond the Festival

February-May 2016 (open during campus hours)
Shakespeare in 1916
Entrance Hall Cabinets, Strand campus
This exhibition highlights how Shakespeare was remembered in 1916 and how he was studied, including materials from the SKeat and Furnival collections.

26 February, 18.00-20.30
In Nature's Mystery More Science: 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead'
Lucas Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus
The Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences presents a screening of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (inspired by Hamlet) with a post-screening talk, exploring science in Shakespeare.
Currently open to KCL staff and students.

11- Saturday 12 March 2016
Beaumont400 Conference and Performance
Friday 11 - Saturday 12 March
Beaumont400 Conference
Edward J Safra Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus

12 March, 19.30-21.30
A performance of The Woman Hater
Chapel, Strand Campus

16 March 2016, 18.00
Shakespeare and the Law Moot
Inner Temple
Bear witness to a mock Shakespearean court case, as students of the Law School at King's present their arguments. Arbitrators will be Lord Judge, Lady Justice Arden and Dean David Caron.
Cost: £15 (free to KCL students) - book via our estore

16 March 2016, 18.00-20.30
In Nature's Mystery More Science: 'Forbidden Planet'
Lucas Lecture Theatre, Strand Campus
The Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences presents a screening of Forbidden Planet (based on the Tempest) with a post screening talk, exploring science in Shakespeare..
Currently open to KCL staff and students.

16 April 2016
Shakespeare's Musical Brain Conference
Great Hall, Strand Campus

Spring 2016
Brazilian Ensemble Performance: "Canções Cortesãs"
Three songs and a melologue for soprano and string orchestra - on Shakespeare sonnets.
Strand Campus

Thursday 16 June - Saturday 24 September 2016
(Monday - Friday, 9.30-17.00, Saturday 10.00-18.00)
'The very age and body of the time': Shakespeare's world
Weston Room, Maughan Library, Chancery Lane
Exhibition of archive material looking at different aspects of Shakespeare's world, including Shakespeare's London, the New World, Medicine and Religion.

Thursday 21 - Friday 22 July 2016
1616 - The Secrets and Passions of William Shakespeare
Transatlantyk2 present their acclaimed new one-man play, which dramatically recreates Shakespeare’s, life, loves and works.
Greenwood Theatre, Guy's Campus

Sunday 31 July - Saturday 6 August
World Shakespeare Congress: Creating and Re-creating Shakespeare
The 2016 World Shakespeare Congress – four hundred years after the playwright’s death – will celebrate Shakespeare’s memory and the global cultural legacy of his works.
Stratford-upon-Avon and London