Call for Papers 2022 Shakespearean Theatre Conference: “Shakespeare in a Changing World”
As we slowly return to in-person activities after the great interruption of the pandemic, we might say to our world, as Snout does to Bottom, “thou art changed.” And while it may be tempting to say with Demetrius, “It seems to me / That yet we sleep, we dream,” we did not dream the last two years. The 4th Shakespearean Theatre Conference will ask how the study and performance of Shakespearean drama might respond to the rapid and very real changes we are witnessing, while also investigating the relationship of this drama to the similarly rapid changes of Shakespeare’s time. To this end, we invite proposals for 20-minute papers, full sessions, and workshops on all aspects of Tudor and Stuart drama, while especially encouraging proposals that focus on historical change, old and/or new. Proposals might, for example, consider Shakespearean drama in relation to the histories of race, religion, gender, sexuality, emotion, and the body; to climate change; to changing performance and editorial practices; to the changing forms of oppression and liberation, including authoritarianism, economic exploitation, free speech, and democratic enfranchisement; to transglobal migration and diasporic change; to the changing media landscape; to language change; to scientific, cognitive, and epistemological revolutions; and to the many other factors that shape the history of its transmission and reception.
Plenary speakers:
Antoni Cimolino (Artistic Director, Stratford Festival)
Brian Cummings (University of York)
Alexa Alice Joubin (George Washington University)
The conference, to be held June 15-18, 2022, in Stratford, Ontario, is a joint venture of the University of Waterloo and the Stratford Festival, and will bring together scholars and practitioners to talk about how performance influences scholarship and vice versa. Paper sessions will be held at the University of Waterloo’s Stratford campus, with plays and special events hosted by the Stratford Festival. The Festival has announced a 2022 season that includes Hamlet, Richard III, All’s Well That Ends Well (the last two in the beautiful new Tom Patterson Theatre), and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman, as well as two world premières: Hamlet-911, by Ann-Marie MacDonald, and 1939, by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan. For conference updates, see https://uwaterloo.ca/english/shakespeare.
By January 31, 2022, please send proposals to Shakespeare@uwaterloo.ca.
Please note: The 4th Shakespearean Theatre Conference, originally scheduled for June 2021, was postponed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We will observe all Government of Canada, Government of Ontario, and University of Waterloo pandemic restrictions and protocols in place at the time of the conference, and we will let participants know what these are closer to the conference dates. If it proves necessary to postpone the conference again, we will do so no later than six weeks before the scheduled dates. Because attending live performances is an important part of the conference experience, we will not move the conference online.
Kenneth Graham Alysia Kolentsis Katherine Laing
Dept. of English Dept. of English Interim Director of Education
Univ. of Waterloo St. Jerome’s Univ. Stratford Festival