CALL FOR PAPERS: Shakespeare and European Theatrical Cultures: AnAtomizing Text and Stage

27 – 30 July 2017 University of Gdańsk and The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, Poland http://esra2017.eu 

Seminars announcement http://esra2017.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ESRA_-_SEMINARS.pdf 

This conference will convene Shakespeare scholars at a theatre that proudly stands in the place where English players regularly performed 400 years ago. This makes us ponder with renewed interest the relation between theatre and Shakespeare. The urge to do so may sound like a commonplace, but it comes to us enhanced by the fact that in the popular and learned imagination alike Shakespeare is inseparable from theatre while the theatre, for four centuries now, first in England, then on the continent (Europe) and eventually in the world, has been more and more strongly defined and shaped by Shakespeare. Shakespeare has become the theatrical icon, a constant point of reference, the litmus paper for the formal, technological and ideological development of the theatre, and for the impact of adaptation and appropriation on theatrical cultures. Shakespeare has served as one of the major sources for the development of European culture, both high and low. His presence permeates the fine shades and fissures of a multifarious European identity. His work has informed educational traditions, and, through forms of textual transmit such as translation and appropriation, has actively contributed to the process of building national distinctiveness. Shakespeare has been one of the master keys and, at the same time, a picklock granting easier access to the complex and challenging space of European and universal values. 

Please send your abstracts and biographies to seminar organisers (and cc conference organisers at gdansk@esra2017.eu) not later than 31 January 2017. 

Organising committee, ESRA 2017: 

Prof. Jerzy Limon, convenor | University of Gdańsk and the Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre 

Prof. Jacek Fabiszak, co-convenor | Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the Polish Shakespeare Society 

Prof. Olga Kubińska | University of Gdańsk and the Polish Shakespeare Society 

Dr. Aleksandra Sakowska | The Shakespeare Institute (UK) 

Marta Nowicka | Conference Coordinator for the University of Gdansk 

Anna Ratkiewicz-Syrek | Conference Coordinator for the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre 

You are now invited to submit papers for the following seminars: 

SEMINARS LIST 

1. Avant-Garde Shakespeares/Shakespeare in the Avant-Garde Conveners: Aleksandra Sakowska, The Shakespeare Institute (UK), Lucian Ghita, Clemson University (USA) 

2. “The accent of his tongue affecteth him:” “Accentism” and/in Shakespeare Conveners: Carla Della Gatta (University of Southern California, USA), Adele Lee (University of Greenwich, UK) 

3. “There are more things in heaven and earth”: Shakespeare’s philosophy, philosophy’s Shakespeare revisited Conveners: Katarzyna Burzyńska (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), Annie Martirosyan (Independent scholar, Armenia) 

4. “You must needs be strangers”: Shakespeare and the Scenography of Mobility Conveners: Miguel Ramalhete Gomes (University of Porto, Portugal), Remedios Perni (University of Murcia, Spain), Christian Smith (University of Warwick, UK) 

5. Shakespeare and Translation for the Stage Conveners: Madalina Nicolaescu (University of Bucharest), Marta Gibinska (Jagiellonian University) 

6. ‘The strangers’ case’ and the ‘tracks’ of performance Conveners: Boika Sokolova (University of Notre Dame – USA / London Global Gateway), Janice Valls-Russell (Research Institute for the Renaissance, the Neo-Classical Era and the Enlightenment (IRCL), University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France) 

7. Anatomizing Shakespearean Myth-making: Game of Thrones Conveners: Thea Buckley (The Shakespeare Institute and the RSC, UK), Paul Hamilton, Independent scholar (USA), Timo Uotinen (Royal Holloway, UK) 

8. Shakespeare and European Writers: Inspiration, Resistance, Authority Conveners: Juan F. Cerdá (University of Murcia), Ángel-Luis Pujante (University of Murcia), Rui Carvalho Homem (University of Porto) 

9. Staged on the Page: Transmedial Shakespeare in Theatre and Visual Arts Conveners: Anna Wołosz-Sosnowska (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland), Megan Holman (Northumbria University, United Kingdom) 

10. Race in European Theatrical Cultures: Border Crossings and Hybrid Identities Conveners: Christy Desmet and Sujata Iyengar, University of Georgia (USA), Krystyna Kujawińska-Courtney, University of Łódź (Poland) 

11. The name of action: actors of Shakespeare and Shakespearean actors Convener: Miranda F Thomas (Shakespeare’s Globe and University of Greenwich) 

12. Shakespeare and Music Conveners: Michelle Assay (Université de Paris Sorbonne, France/Canada/Iran), David Fanning (University of Manchester, UK), Christopher Wilson (University of Hull, UK) 

13. Shakespearean Drama and the Early Modern European Stage Conveners: Lukas Erne (University of Geneva), Ton Hoenselaars (Utrecht University) 

 

14. He do Shakespeare in Different Voices: The use of Regional Accents and Dialects Conveners: Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam University), Domenico Lovascio (University of Genoa) 

15. Magic through ritual objects and stage props: Early Modern practices and Modern adaptations Conveners: Pierre Kapitaniak (University of Montpellier), Natalia Brzozowska (Kujawy and Pomorze University in Bydgoszcz) 

16. Shakespeare and the Politics of Location Conveners: Magdalena Cieślak (University of Łódź), Francesca Rayner (Universidade do Minho) 

17. The influence of Shakespeare’s tragic dramatic approach on European thought on justice Conveners: Reina Brouwer (University of Leiden, Campus The Hague, The Netherlands), Zsuzsánna Kiss (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church Budapest) 

18. Staging Utopias: Shakespeare in Print and Performance Conveners: Delilah Bermudez Brataas (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), Anna Kowalcze-Pawlik (Wyższa Szkoła Europejska, Kraków, Poland) 

19. Shakespeare in performance in digital media Conveners: Urszula Kizelbach (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań), Imke Lichterfeld (University of Bonn) 

Download seminars list here to find out more! http://esra2017.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ESRA_-_SEMINARS.pdf 

Confirmed PLENARY LECTURES: 

Professor Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, University of Warsaw Professor 

Diana Henderson, MIT Professor Peter Holland, University of Notre Dame Luc Perceval, the Hamburg Thalia Theatre 

Confirmed PANELS and roundtables: http://esra2017.eu/general-information/panels/ 

The conference takes place during the 21st International Shakespeare Festival http://festiwalszekspirowski.pl/en/home-2/festival/ at the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29201993

Women and Shakespeare Day Conference

Sat, 23 Jul 2016 at 10:00 - Chawton, United Kingdom

Event Description

Shakespeare is celebrated for having created some of Western theatre’s most iconic female roles, yet characters such as Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew and Isabella in Measure for Measure continue to perplex as much as they fascinate readers, audiences, and theatre practitioners. His works have inspired a rich tradition of women’s writing and in the theatre women such as Ellen Kean, Ellen Terry, and Edy Craig have been influential in shaping Shakespeare in performance. In the year of the 400th anniversary of his death, this event will consider the part women have played in constructing Shakespeare’s reputation and ensuring his ongoing fame.

The event will conclude with a Jubilee Promenade Performance of the most iconic of Shakespeare’s women, directed by Elaine McGirr (Royal Holloway, University of London). This will include both silent tableaux and characteristic speeches from the original plays and from eighteenth-century adaptations. Highlights are Lady Constance’s maternal passion, Cordelia’s triumphant final speech, and Margaret of Anjou, ‘the she-wolf of France’.

Speakers include:

Ailsa Grant Ferguson (University of Brighton): ‘Original’ practice? All-female Shakespeare from suffragettes to Smooth Faced Gentlemen

Gail Marshall (University of Leicester): Women and Shakespeare in 1859

Fiona Ritchie and Peter Sabor (McGill University): Shakespeare in the letters, journals and novels of Frances Burney and Sarah Harriet Burney

Ann Thompson (King’s College London): The Taming of the Shrew: the play we love to hate

Tickets: Delegate £45 Student/Friend £35 WhenSaturday, 23 July 2016 from 10:00 to 18:00 (WhereChawton House Library - Chawton, GU34

Tickets at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/women-and-shakespeare-day-conference-tickets-24958342073

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.

Call for Papers: Recent European (Re)translations of Shakespeare

29 June - 2 July 2015, University of Worcester, UK
A seminar at the ESRA conference

Conveners: Lily Kahn (UCL), l.kahn@ucl.ac.uk
Márta Minier (University of South Wales), marta.minier@southwales.ac.uk
Martin Regal (University of Iceland), martinregal@gmail.com

The longevity of Shakespearean translations is generally somewhat limited. Although some canonical translations have a relatively long life as literary works and/or in the theatre, it is common for Shakespeare to be retranslated periodically. Within Europe there is a widespread phenomenon of systematic series of (re)translations of Shakespeare’s complete works; in recent years this trend has given rise to the WSOY Finnish Complete Works, completed in 2013, the new Polish Complete Works, the New Romanian Shakespeare series, and others. In addition, specially commissioned individual retranslations designed for specific productions are a common feature of the European theatrical scene. Examination of the rich variety of issues surrounding this phenomenon of retranslation in the European context can provide valuable insights into the theory and practice of Shakespearean interpretation.

This proposed seminar will bring together scholars, editors and practising translators engaged in the production and analysis of Shakespearean translations. It will also be open to dramaturges or directors who would like to comment on working with new or revised (that is, dramaturgically adjusted) translations. Proposals will be welcomed on topics including but not limited to the following:

• factors galvanising the decision to produce new translations, including philological and interpretive shifts, changing conventions of theatre, and the emergence of new performance and directorial styles; 
• the collaborative framework behind commissioned translations and the relationship between the translator and other stakeholders;
• societal perceptions of the modern Shakespeare translator; trends in the selection of different translation strategies (e.g. foreignising vs. domesticating);
• comparisons between alternative translations of the ‘same’ play (both synchronically and diachronically);
• different translations of a single play by the same translator; the use of updated and otherwise modified versions of existing translations in new productions instead of commissioning completely original work; 
• the critical reception of new translations both in textual format and in theatrical contexts.

We will consider papers focusing on academic translation series not necessarily intended for performance in addition to those specifically commissioned or designed for theatrical use that may not be as suitable for employment in educational contexts.

Please submit an abstract (200-300 words) and a brief biography (150 words) by 1 December 2014 to all seminar conveners. All participants will be notified about the acceptance of their proposals by 1 March 2015. The deadline for submitting the completed seminar papers (3,000 words) is 1 May 2015.



Conference Announcement

The traffic of Shakespeare’s stage invites spectators and readers to travel to different places, imagined and real. Italian and French cities – Verona, Venice, Mantua, Padua, Florence, Milan, Rome, Navarre, Roussillon, Paris, Marseilles – set the scenes of his plays. Rome, Athens, Ephesus and Troy occasion travels in time. On Britain’s map – divided in King Lear – other places are mapped: Scotland, England, Windsor, the Forest of Arden, York. Viola arrives on ‘the shore’ of Illyria while, in The Winter’s Tale, the action shifts between Bohemia and Sicilia. Othello sets up camp in Cyprus and Don Pedro returns, victorious, to Messina. Within the confines of one play, Hamlet, too, maps Europe: from Elsinore, Laertes requests permission to return to France; the Mousetrap is set in Vienna, which will become the setting for Measure for Measure; Hamlet is sent to England, and on his way encounters the Norwegian army marching across Denmark on its way to Poland.

Time and geographical travels map a whole continent and its social, political and cultural exchanges – a feature that Shakespeare’s plays shared with his early modern contemporaries as much as they have with his readers, editors, translators, spectators, film adaptors and critical commentators since.

The 2015 ESRA conference continues the long-standing dialogue between Shakespeare’s Europe and Europe’s Shakespeare(s). It asks scholars to take a look at the wider playwriting context of the early modern period and the European reception of Shakespeare as a subject that has been continuously developing, not least due to Europe’s several recent remappings. Twenty-five years since the first events that focused exclusively on European Shakespeares (Antwerp 1990) and Shakespeare in the New Europe (Sofia 1992), ESRA 2015 invites a look back at 425 years of European Shakespeare and towards a vigorous debate on what Shakespeare means for Europe today, as well as on ESRA’s place in Shakespeare Studies, European and beyond.