Announcements

Lean & Hungry Theater “The Tempest” LIVE March 4

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:05:38 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.074 Wednesday, 22 February 2012

Date: Tuesday, 21 Feb 2012 15:58:10 -0600 (CST)

Subject: Lean & Hungry Theater “The Tempest” LIVE March 4

On Sunday, March 4, WAMU 88.5 and Washington, D.C.’s only radio drama company, Lean & Hungry Theater, will present a special live-to-air broadcast of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, at the state-of-the-art Wilson High School Auditorium in northwest D.C. Be a part of the audience as actors at stationary microphones transform Shakespeare’s work into a radio broadcast that listeners of any age will enjoy.

Set in the distant future in the Naples Galaxy, Lean & Hungry’s The Tempest is a sci-fi adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic play. Prospero and his daughter, Miranda, live on a small planet, where their spaceship crash landed after Prospero was ousted from his dukedom by his brother. With only Miranda, the hideous alien Caliban, and a sentient computer program named Ariel for company, Prospero seizes the opportunity for revenge by creating a cosmic tempest that forces Antonio and the Queen, along with the queen’s son Ferdinand, to crash land when they fly close to Prospero’s planet. Using his mastery of technology, Prospero sends everyone into a mad, hilarious dance until he brings them all together for the final confrontation.

Audience members are invited to participate in the post-production discussion moderated by WAMU 88.5’s Kojo Nnamdi.

The Tempest
Presented by WAMU 88.5 & Lean & Hungry Theater

Sunday, March 4, 2012

6-7 p.m.
Location: Wilson High School Auditorium

3950 Chesapeake Street NW

Washington, DC 20016

Please arrive for seating no later than 5:50 p.m.
Tickets are $25 and are available for purchase online.
For more information, email wamuevents@wamu.org.

WAMU 88.5 FM

American University Radio

4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C. 20016

CFP: This Rough Magic

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 19:50:11 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.070 Monday, 20 February 2012

From: Michael Boecherer <boechem@sunysuffolk.edu>

Date: February 19, 2012 1:37:13 PM EST

Subject: CFP: This Rough Magic

This Rough Magic (www.thisroughmagic.org) is a journal dedicated to the art of teaching Medieval and Renaissance Literature. We are seeking academic, teachable articles that focus on, but are not limited to, the following categories:

•Authorship

•Genre Issues

•Narrative Structure

•Poetry

•Drama

•Epic

•Nation/Empire/Class

•Economics

•History

•Religion

•Superstition

•Philosophy and Rhetoric

•Race/Ethnicity

•Multi-Culturalism

•Gender

•Sexuality

•Art

We also seek short essays that encourage faculty to try overlooked, non-traditional texts inside the classroom and book reviews. For more information, please visit our website www.thisroughmagic.org or contact Michael Boecherer (boechem@sunysuffolk.edu). Faculty and Graduate Students are encouraged to submit.

This Rough Magic is affiliated with the following academic institutions:

•Bridgewater State University

•The Catholic University of America

•Newman University

•State University of New York - Stony Brook

•Suffolk County Community College

Michael Boecherer

Department of English

Suffolk County Community College - Riverhead Campus

Telephone: 631-548-2587

www.thisroughmagic.org

Chesapeake Shakespeare's Merchant

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:40:08 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.066 Sunday, 19 February 2012

From: Chesapeake Shakespeare Company <chesapeakeshakes@chesapeakeshakes.pmailus.com>

Date: February 16, 2012 1:13:09 PM EST

Subject: Merchant Opens This Friday--Inside Scoop

This production is indoors at the 1820 Oliver’s Carriage House in Columbia, Maryland. With its huge beams and stone fireplace, this clearly isn't a theatre space, but we turn it into a great opportunity to experience Shakespeare as if it were in your living room. The lights are on, and the actors are only a couple of feet away from you. It’s a chance to see a lot of the careful, thoughtful work that’s gone into making these performances glow with passion.

A fairy tale romance between Portia and Bassanio is assisted and encouraged by the generous merchant, Antonio. When Antonio must default on a loan, Shylock, an abused and bitterly vengeful Jewish moneylender, demands the gruesome payment of a pound of flesh and only the clever Portia seems able to save Antonio from the consequences of his anti-Semitism.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

at Oliver’s Carriage House, Columbia, Maryland

February 17 - March 24

Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00, Saturdays at 3:00 & 8:00

(no performances March 1, 2, 3, & 10)

Adults: $36

Seniors 65+: $29

Under-25: $15 (not recommended for children under 12) ticket service fees included in ticket price

Pay-What-You-Will Preview: Thursday, February 16 at 8:00

Extended Versions: Saturday, February 25 and Friday, March 23

Call 410.313.8661 (Mon. - Fri. 12:00 -4:30)

EMLS 16.1

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:00:25 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.062 Monday, 13 February 2012

From: Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>

Date: Monday, 13 Feb 2012 12:12:53 -0800

Subject: EMLS 16.1

To whom it may concern:

The first number of volume 16 of Early Modern Literary Studies has recently been posted. As usual, it is available for download free and without subscription at the following web address: http://purl.org/emls

The table of contents follows.

Sincerely,

Sean Lawrence.

Early Modern Literary Studies 16.1 (2012)

Articles:

Pious Aeneas, False Aeneas: Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage and the Gift of Death. Mathew Martin, Brock University. [1]

The publication of No-body and Some-body: humanism, history and economics in the early Jacobean public theatre. Anthony Archdeacon, Liverpool Hope University. [2]

Fair Foul and Right Wrong: The Language of Alchemy in Timon of Athens. Anna Feuer, Wolfson College, Oxford. [3]

England’s Adam: the short career of the Giant Samothes in English Reformation thought. Jack P. Cunningham, Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln. [4]

Learning to Obey in Milton and Homer. Daniel Shore, Georgetown University. [5]

Reviews:

John M. Adrian, Local Negotiations of English Nationhood, 1570-1680. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Patrick J. Murray, University of Glasgow. [6]

David J. Baker. On Demand: Writing for the Market in Early Modern England. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2010. Jonathan P. Lamb, University of Kansas. [7]

Elizabeth Clarke, Politics, Religion and the Song of Songs in Seventeenth-Century England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Marie-Louise Coolahan, National University of Ireland, Galway. [8]

A. D. Cousins and Alison V. Scott, eds. Ben Jonson and the Politics of Genre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Bernadette Andrea, University of Texas, San Antonio. [9]

Simon C. Estok. Ecocriticism and Shakespeare: Reading Ecophobia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Todd Borlik, Bloomsburg University. [10]

Jane Kingsley-Smith. Cupid in Early Modern Literature and Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. William Junker, University of St. Thomas. [11]

Kirk Melnikoff, ed., Robert Greene. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011. Jenny Sager, Jesus College, Oxford. [12]

Theatre Reviews:

Two productions of Dr Faustus on Bankside, presented by Little Goblin Productions at the Rose Theatre, and by Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Summer 2011. Neil Forsyth, University of Lausanne. [13]

Hamlet presented by the Jungle Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 26 August – 9 October, 2011. Bruce E. Brandt South Dakota State University. [14]

East Anglia Shakespeare, Summer/Autumn 2011. Michael Grosvenor Myer. [15]

Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, Henry IV Part Two, Love’s Labor’s Lost, The African Company Presents Richard III, and Ghostlight, presented by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, February-November 2011. Geoff Ridden, Southern Oregon University. [16]

Othello presented at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, 27th September 2011. Claire Warden, University of Lincoln. [17]

The Two Noble Kinsmen, King Edward III, and Double Falsehood, presented by Atlanta's New American Shakespeare Tavern (March-June 2011). Joanne E. Gates, Jacksonville State University. [18]

The Tempest (Stormen), presented by the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm, November 19, 2010. Neil Forsyth and Anna Swärdh University of Lausanne and University of Karlstad. [19]

’Tis Pity She’s A Whore, a rehearsed reading presented at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin. 9th June 2011. Edel Semple, University College Dublin. [20]

NEH Institute on Roman Comedy in Performance

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:50:25 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.061 Monday, 13 February 2012

From: Timothy Moore <timmoore@mail.utexas.edu>

Date: February 11, 2012 1:15:40 PM EST

Subject: NEH Institute on Roman Comedy in Performance

An NEH Summer Institute for College and University Faculty, “Roman Comedy in Performance,” will be held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina from June 24th through July 20th , 2012. Co-directed by Professors Sharon L. James (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Timothy J. Moore (University of Texas at Austin), the NEH Summer Institute will give NEH Summer Scholars (twenty-two university or college faculty members and three graduate students) the opportunity to discuss the performance practice and social significance of Roman Comedy with leading experts in the field and to practice scholarship through performance, producing their own performances of scenes from the plays of Plautus and Terence. The NEH Summer Scholars for this Institute will include non-classicists as well as classicists, and no knowledge of Latin is required.

Participants will receive a stipend of $3,300.

Applications are due by March 1, 2012. For more information, consult http://nehsummer2012romancomedy.web.unc.edu/ or write to either co-director: sljames@email.unc.edu or timmoore@mail.utexas.edu.

Timothy J. Moore

Department of Classics

The University of Texas at Austin

1 University Station, C3400

Austin, TX 78712-0308

512-232-4161

NEH Summer Institute: Roman Comedy in Performance: http://nehsummer2012romancomedy.web.unc.edu/

Doctoral Studentship at Queen’s

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:51:45 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.053 Tuesday, 7 February 2012

From: Laury Magnus <magnusl@USMMA.EDU>

Date: February 7, 2012 10:14:56 AM EST

Subject: Doctoral Studentship at Queen’s

[Editor’s Note: I got this from Laury Magnus, who got it from Mike Jensen, who got it from Ann Thompson, who got it from Tom Healy. –Hardy]

Funded three-year PhD international studentship:

Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, has been awarded funds for the support of PhD studentships in certain strategic priority areas. Funding has been awarded to the School of English for the international studentship described here.

Supervisors:

Professor Mark Thornton Burnett (School of English); Dr Ramona Wray (School of English)

Project:

Shakespeare and the Soundtrack

Shakespeare on film is often seen as a primarily verbal or visual phenomenon; by contrast, this project argues that the filmic representations of the likes of Lawrence Olivier, Orson Welles and Kenneth Branagh are enhanced, complicated and finessed by the ways in which the soundtrack stands in for, or translates, the Shakespearean word. The role of music in Shakespeare film takes multiple forms, including lush refrains, action genre pop scores, classically-inspired requiems, and romantic themes, but a common denominator is the synecdoche-like place of musical motifs with reference to language. Tracing the means whereby music operates, the study investigates points of connection between multiple acoustic levels, placing together examples that disclose unexpected comparative possibilities. For example, in addition to exploring some familiar Anglophone instances – among them, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear – the project enfolds discussion of less well-known films from China, Japan and India, such as The Banquet, an adaptation of Hamlet, An Okinawan Night’s Dream (an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Yellamma, an adaptation of Macbeth. Here, the focus is on how particular forms of instrumentation – indigenous styles of strings, percussion and woodwind – work not only to mediate Shakespearean rhetoric but also to place it in alternative cultural registers that are aurally apprehended. Essentially, then, a comparative study, ‘Shakespeare and the Soundtrack’ allows methodologies that have previously operated only in narrow national and educational contexts to cross-fertilize, elaborating models of intertextual dialogue and demonstrating how creative modes of words and music offer valuable lessons for our own and media responsive global age.

Qualifications:

Candidates with a range of different combinations of knowledge and skill may be considered. For those whose primary background is in literature, the equivalent of Grade 7 Theory in Music might be helpful, but other evidence of musical understanding might be acceptable. For those whose primary background is in Music, some relevant literary modules at university level, or equivalent evidence of knowledge, would be helpful.

Eligibility:

International / non-EU students (students from China, Japan, India, Australia, Canada and the US, for example)

Closing date for applications:

2 March 2012

http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/

Latest Issue of Cahiers Elisabethains

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:59:31 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.051 Monday, 6 February 2012

From: Jean-Christophe Mayer <Jean-Christophe.Mayer@univ-montp3.fr>

Date: February 5, 2012 11:21:24 AM EST

Subject: Latest Issue of Cahiers Elisabethains

THE LATEST ISSUE OF CAHIERS ELISABETHAINS IS NOW AVAILABLE: N° 80 (2011)

* This issue includes an exclusive interview of Professor Roger Chartier on his latest book: Cardenio, from Cervantes to Shakespeare and Beyond

To access table of contents please click on the following link:

<http://www.ircl.cnrs.fr/pdf/Cahiers/Cahiers_CE80_i-x_web.pdf>

To order issues: <cahiers@univ-montp3.fr>

* Please note also that article submissions are now open for the next issues of the journal.

Submissions can be send to either of Cahiers's assistant editors: <agnes.lafont@univ-montp3.fr> or <Nicholas.myers@univ-montp3.fr>

More information: <http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/cahiers/>

David Kastan, Zoe Caldwell, Stacy Keach, John Ford’s “The Broken Heart”

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:54:57 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.050 Monday, 6 February 2012

From: John F Andrews <shakesguild@msn.com>

Date: Friday, 3 Feb 2012 12:39:03 -0700

Subject: David Kastan, Zoe Caldwell, Stacy Keach, John Ford’s “The Broken Heart”

The Shakespeare Guild is pleased to invite you to three programs in Manhattan’s beautiful Gramercy Park, two at the National Arts Club and one next door at The Players, where you’ll have an opportunity to meet and talk with one of today’s most eminent Shakespeare scholars, DAVID SCOTT KASTAN of Yale University, and with two of our era’s most distinguished actors, ZOE CALDWELL and STACY KEACH. We’re also delighted to offer you a discount on tickets for Theatre for a New Audience’s staging of John Ford’s THE BROKEN HEART at the Duke Theatre.

-------------------------------------------------------------

SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR ‘THE BROKEN HEART’

FEBRUARY 4 THROUGH MARCH 4

THE DUKE THEATRE, 229 West 42nd Street, Manhattan

Guild Constituents $52.50 (Regularly $75.00)

If you saw Alexis Soloski’s New York Times article, “Extreme Theater: Wake-Up Calls from the 1600s”

(www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/theater/john-fords-broken-heart-and-tis-pity-shes-a-whore.html),

you’re aware that playgoers in Manhattan and Brooklyn are looking forward to attending two rarely-produced tragedies by 17th-century dramatist John Ford. One, THE BROKEN HEART, figured prominently in a fascinating National Arts Club discussion on January 11. JEFFREY HOROWITZ, whose visionary leadership has enabled such pioneering artists as Mark Rylance and Julie Taymor to do seminal work at Theatre for a New Audience, introduced SELINA CARTMELL, a brilliant new Irish director, to an NAC gathering that was eager to hear about her first production in New York. She and Mr. Horowitz spoke with the Shakespeare Guild’s John Andrews about what makes Ford plays like ‘TIS PITY TO BE A WHORE (soon to be revived at BAM) resonate with renewed intensity. Ms. Cartmell and a distinguished cast are now putting the finishing touches on a show that opens tomorrow, and constituents of the Guild are eligible to obtain $75 tickets for only $52.50. To take advantage of this generous discount, simply log on to www.dukeon42.org or call 646-223-3010, using code SHG2760 when you place your order. For details about the show, visit www.tfana.org.

-------------------------------------------------------------

A CHAT WITH YALE’S DAVID SCOTT KASTAN

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, at 8:00 p.m.

NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, 15 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan

Guild Constituents $25

DAVID KASTAN is the first American scholar to serve as a General Editor of The Arden Shakespeare, a prestigious collection of the complete works that has been Britain’s standard-bearer for more than a century. A distinguished professor of English at Yale University, Mr. Kastan has also earned plaudits for his work at Dartmouth and Columbia. His many publications include Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time (1982), Shakespeare After Theory (1999), and Shakespeare and the Book (2001). Mr. Kastan co-edited Staging the Renaissance: Essays on Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (1991) and The New History of Early English Drama (1997), and he is the sole editor of Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” (1995), A Companion to Shakespeare (1999), The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature (2006), and other volumes. This spring he’ll be overseeing a major celebration of “Shakespeare at Yale,” a festival that will highlight such resources as the library’s outstanding collection of early quarto and folio printings and the university’s highly regarded repertory theater.

-------------------------------------------------------------

A CONVERSATION WITH ZOE CALDWELL

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, at 7:00 p.m.

THE PLAYERS, 16 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan

Guild Constituents $25

In her latest triumph ZOE CALDWELL has been riveting audiences, and garnering critical praise, as a cold-hearted Upper East Side matron in David Adjmi’s intimidatingly intimate Elective Affinitives. Meanwhile she has been moving filmgoers as an affectionate grandmother in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, one of this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. Long admired for her commanding stage presence, Ms. Caldwell has earned four Tony Awards, most recently as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s Master Class. She has portrayed such heroines as Lady Macbeth and Medea, not to mention Lillian Hellman and Miss Jean Brodie, and she has worked with such legends as Dame Judith Anderson, Dame Edith Evans, Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Charles Laughton, and Paul Robeson. She has also directed some of the greatest stars in the profession, among them Eileen Atkins, Glenda Jackson, James Earl Jones, Christopher Plummer, and Vanessa Redgrave. Ms. Caldwell is now writing a sequel to I Will Be Cleopatra, a charming memoir about her early years in Australia, and she’ll share a few delightful passages about her most memorable encounters with Shakespeare.

-------------------------------------------------------------

A CONVERSATION WITH STACY KEACH

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, at 8:00 p.m.

NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, 15 Gramercy Park South, Manhattan

Guild Constituents $25

STACY KEACH is currently starring in Broadway’s acclaimed Other Desert Cities. Best known to many of his television fans as Mickey Spillane detective Mike Hammer, Mr. Keach is also familiar for such popular films as Brewster McCloud, Doc, Judge Roy Bean, That Championship Season, and The New Centurians. But what he finds most satisfying is the Shakespearean acting he has done in such classic roles as Falstaff, Henry V, Macbeth, Mercutio, and Richard III. Clive Barnes, who observed a number of superb Hamlets during his many years as drama critic for the New York Times, has commented that the best ever “was Keach, whose neurotic passion and fierce poetry were quite wonderful.” Described by one reviewer as “the finest American classical actor since John Barrymore,” Mr. Keach has received a Best Actor Golden Globe, three Obies, three Vernon Rice Awards, three Helen Hayes Awards (among them for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in the national touring production of Frost/Nixon and for his King Lear at the Shakespeare Theatre Company), and multiple nominations for Emmy and Tony awards.

Folger: The Gaming Table, Shakespeare’s Sisters, and More

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:44:33 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.049 Monday, 6 February 2012

From: Folger Shakespeare Library <theatre@folger.edu>

Date: Thursday, 02 Feb 2012 15:24:54 -0500

Subject: Folger: The Gaming Table, Shakespeare’s Sisters, and More

What’s on at the Folger

Be a Friend to the Folger in February! February is Membership Month at the Folger and the perfect time to join—not only do Friends receive discounts on tickets to performances and other exclusive benefits, but Friends who join in February have the chance to win tickets to one of the following events:

Folger Consort’s “Songbird” performance on Friday, March 16 OR the Opening Night performance of Folger Theatre’s “The Taming of the Shrew” on Monday, May 7.

To join, visit www.folger.edu/friends or contact Winnie Harrington Robinson at (202) 675-0359.

Winning Ticket

Folger Theatre: The Gaming Table

Stylishly entertaining, Folger Theatre’s The Gaming Table explores the world of high-stakes gambling, where the players wager money as well as their hearts. Washington Post critic Peter Marks praises the show for its “buoyant air and a bouquet of ripe performances.”

Join the show’s director Eleanor Holdridge and Georgianna Ziegler, Folger Shakespeare Library’s head of reference and curator of the exhibition Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers,1500-1700 for a special talk on playwright Susannah Centlivre and her hit comedy, The Gaming Table. The free lecture will be held at 2pm on Feb 5 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

On stage through March 4

Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm

Fri at 8pm

Sat at 2pm & 8pm

Sun at 2pm & 7pm

Part of the Folger’s 1,000 Years of Women Writers program series.

Buy Tickets

So Much to Say

Folger Exhibitions: Shakespeare’s Sisters

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf imagined a sister for Shakespeare, his equal in talent and ambition, but prevented from achieving success because of her gender. A new exhibition at the Folger, Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women, 1500-1700, showcases writing by Shakespeare’s female contemporaries, many of whose works remained unknown for centuries. From religious writing to translations to love poetry and yes, plays, Shakespeare’s Sisters brings together a chorus of previously unheard voices and introduces these remarkable women to a wider public.

Feb 3 to May 20

Mon—Sat, 10am to 5pm

Sun, 12noon to 5pm

Part of the Folger’s 1,000 Years of Women Writers program series.

Speaking Out

O.B. Hardison Poetry Series: Shakespeare’s Sisters

Rita Dove, Linda Gregerson, Elizabeth Nunez, Jacqueline Osherow, Linda Pastan, and Jane Smiley read from new works published in the Shakespeare’s Sisters chapbook, a companion publication to the exhibition of the same name. In their poems and essays, the writers respond to the writings of 16^th and 17^th-century women. An after-hours viewing of the Shakespeare’s Sisters exhibition precedes the reading.

Special Offer! Folger Friends and students can purchase half-price tickets to this event! Call (202)544-7077 to receive the discount.

Part of the Folger’s 1,000 Years of Women Writers program series.

Thurs, Feb 16

7pm

Isle of Wonders

In the News: Shakespeare Theme in London Olympics

A line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest will kick off the opening ceremony for the Olympics in London this summer: “Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises.”

“Cultural Translations: Medieval / Early Modern / Postmodern”

shaksper@shaksper.net (Hardy Cook) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 19:24:25 +0000

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.048 Monday, 6 February 2012

From: Alexander Huang <acyhuang05@gmail.com>

Date: February 5, 2012 2:56:01 PM EST

Subject: “Cultural Translations: Medieval / Early Modern / Postmodern”

Going to the Renaissance Society of America (RSA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C. (Mar 22-24)? You are cordially invited to stay one more day to catch the one-day symposium “Cultural Translations: Medieval / Early Modern / Postmodern” to be held at George Washington University in D.C., 9:30 am - 4:00 pm, Sunday, March 25, 2012.

Free and open to the public. Please stay tuned for updates on the venue and lunch.

Website: http://www.gwu.edu/~acyhuang/culturaltranslations.html

ABOUT

Empires are lost and won, and stories are marred and rediscovered through cultural translations—the transformation of genres, manipulation of ideas, and linguistic translation. Cultural translation is one of the most significant modes of textual and cultural transmission from medieval to modern times. Estrangement and transnational cultural flows continue to define the afterlife of narratives. Translation, or translatio, signifying “the figure of transport,” was a common rhetorical trope in early modern Europe that referred to the conveyance of ideas from one geo-cultural location to another, from one historical period to another, and from one artistic form to another.

Over the past decade “translation” as an expansive critical concept has greatly enriched literary and cultural studies. In response to these exciting new developments, this one-day symposium brings together leading scholars from the fields of medieval and early modern studies, history, film, English, Spanish and Portuguese, Arabic and comparative literary studies to engage in transhistorical and interdisciplinary explorations of post/colonial travel, globalization, and the transformation of texts, ideas, and genres.

The presentations are designed with both general and specialist audiences in mind. Following in the wake of several recent events in town, namely the Folger’s exhibitions on “Imagining China: The View from Europe, 1550-1700” and “Manifold Greatness: The Creation and Afterlife of the King James Bible” and conferences on “Contact and Exchange: China and the West” and “Early Modern Translation: Theory, History, Practice,” and the 58^th Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA) in Washington, DC, 22–24 March, 2012, the Symposium at GW continues and expands these thought-provoking dialogues.

PRESENTATIONS

Medieval

Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Toronto, English and Medieval Studies): Translating the Past: World Literature in the Medieval Mediterranean

Marcia Norton (GW, History): topic to be announced

Early Modern

Barbara Fuchs (UCLA, English and Spanish & Portuguese): Return to Sender: "Hispanicizing" Cardenio

Christina Lee (Princeton, Spanish & Portuguese): Imagining China in a Golden Age Spanish Epic

Postmodern

Peter Donaldson (MIT, Literature): The King’s Speech: Shakespeare, Empire and Global Media

Margaret Litvin (Boston, Arabic and Comparative Literature): topic to be announced

The event is co-sponsored by the George Washington University Department of English and Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute (MEMSI), and co-organized by Alexander Huang, Jonathan Hsy, and Lowell Duckert.