Conversations about Shakespeare and related topics with Shakespearean scholars, educators, actors. digital developers, and early modern archivists. This program is hosted by Thomas Dabbs from Aoyama Gakuin University (AGU) in central Tokyo. It is funded with institutional support from Aoyama Gakuin and also by a generous grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), which also provides support for research in the humanities.
Thank you so much. This has been a lovely and fascinating conversation to listen to. A honing of my attention- beautiful, reflective and generous style of thinking aloud. I've sourced a seam of new reading in David Kastan and new listening in this series. Thank you.
Why try to police the inconsequential thoughts of white actors and artists? Probably the least racist cohort one could possible engage. If you're serious there are several pubs near me where straight ahead racism is routine and it is consequential. American critical race theory always seems to prioritize the fragile, low hanging fruit. Perhaps this is a function of it being, itself, profoundly racist.
@14:47 The English language seems unable to frame the so called hard question of consciousness much less formulate answers. Fortunately a full, lucid and reasonably accessible answer was made a few hundred years ago. A bit of a day trip is required though. Take the London Underground on the Northern Line to Hampstead, turn right out of the station then right again into Flask Walk. Fifty yards up is The Flask pub. Go in there and enjoy one or two (optional) pints of Youngs Special or similar. Continue up Flask Walk, along Well Walk and onto Hampstead Heath. Then head north towards Kenwood House paying close attention to your unusual location. Enter Kenwood House (free) and ask a gallery attendant where the Rembrandt is. When you have found Self Portrait with Two Circles c. 1665-1669 try to pay no more attention to your unusual location. Instead stare at the picture, the brushwork, the loose brushstroke that describes the bottom edge of the headgear where it meets Rembrandt's forehead, the colour, composition and the face and the eyes, until the answer to the hard question of consciousness comes into focus. It may or may not occur to you that Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is dead and that you are going to be too. This is a truly dreadful painting; arguably the greatest ever painted; arguably the greatest achievement by a hominid full stop. Retrace your route down through the heath back to the pub and have one more pint of Youngs Special or similar. Consider another trip to Kenwood to see the Vermeer, the van Dycks and other pictures which were missed and which might have something more to say about the hard question.
[SEGMENTS] 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:20 - ‘The Playbook’ and Shakespeare in America 00:04:17 - The Federal Theater (1935-39) 00:07:22 - Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theater 00:13:02 - Martin Dies and the conservative playbook 00:18:50 - The American culture war 00:20:05 - Beginnings of the Federal Theater 00:23:50 - A lost and found research archive 00:25:10 - Is Christopher Marlowe a communist? 00:31:35 - Race and Macbeth 00:36:50 - Criticism from the left of the left 00:39:25 - The death of innovation, the playbook redux 00:47:40 - The life of Othello in America
[SEGMENTS] 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:02:18 - Balliol College sabbatical, current research 00:06:12 - Why humanities, arts, and social science at MIT 00:12:50 - Shakespeare and digital pedagogy 00:22:33 - Shakespeare and adaptation 00:40:09 - Shakespeare in film, Shakespeare/Sense 00:48:21 - Preserving theatre with recordings and records 00:58:30 - Diana’s work as a dramaturg 01:03:10 - Passions Made Public/ made feminism in academia 01:11:11 - Genealogies of literary criticism 01:14:33 - Closing remarks
[SEGMENTS] 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:00 - The Speaking of Shakespeare Series 00:06:40 - Aoyama Gakuin, Tokyo, and how Dabbs got to Japan 00:16:45 - “Genesis in Japan: the Bible beyond Christianity” 00:34:14 - St Paul’s, Paul’s Cross and Shakespearean drama 00:47:03 - Digital Humanities, AI, AGU Digital Project, Archives, Meisei 00:56:17 - “Waiting for Will,” avant-garde drama in Japan, prison 01:04:02 - “Playing with Shakespeare in Japan” 01:14:27 - “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” and the Office of the Revels 01:18:12 - Closing remarks
I fully agree that Shakespeare is liberating, and add that initiation to Shakespeare is best done at Oxford, England, in a still class-oriented society🙂🔥
[SEGMENTS] 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:55 - ‘Shakespeare’s White Others’ 00:30:07 - Personal elements in David’s writing 00:31:25 - Trinity College and teaching 00:42:32 - White Others VR Art Gallery 00:51:44 - Hood Pedagogy 00:56:48 - Claudia Rankine: The Racial Imaginary Inst. (TRII) 01:07:45 - Promotion and mini-book tour 01:15:16 - Upcoming panel: In Plain Sight 01:18:07 - Stopped by the police, generational racism 01:32:45 - Rest and mental health 01:39:11 - Southern grandmothers: race relations 01:45:18 - Closing remarks
What a wonderful conversation! Tiffany is always creative in going outside the box to learn more Shakespeare. Her point about ballads bringing the audience together around a shared love of music is excellent. We might say the same about Shakespeare's many literary allusions to the wording of the Whole Book of Psalms, so the psalms--and the music to which the congregation sang them--created a virtual sound-track for his works.
Forgetting to hit record explains the laughter! I first encountered Tiffany at the Blackfriars Conference at the American Shakespeare Center years ago. Unforgettably, the person who introduced her quipped that if Tiffany disagrees with you, you'll feel you've been trampled by a herd of butterflies.
a "bottom" is the cocoon a silkworm makes when it pupates, hence the metamorphosis in many ways in Bottom. Moffat's SIlkworms and their Files is a sometimes accepted sometimes rejected source for Midsummer, I am in the accept camp. The connection between Deloney and Moffat has not been examined to my knowledge, but the professional connection suggests that there is a paper there.
SEGMENTS 00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:30 - CNRS and IRCL: Roles in research 00:08:58 - Human beings in history: materialism and theory 00:21:48 - Trans-disciplinary research 00:26:00 - Shakespeare in Japan 00:27:24 - Montpellier 00:28:48 - First Folio in Japan: Meisei, Used Books 00:42:32 - Early readers: Finding yourself in a book 00:51:03 - Elizabeth Montague and Voltaire 00:57:10 - Popular theatre: Shakespeare, Molière 01:09:07 - The early modern print industry 01;14:35 - Reception theory and appropriation 01:18:04 - The Tempest: Here and There 01:21:34 - English drama and the French 01:27:25 - 'Cahiers Élisabéthains' and literary journals 01:35:00 - Closing remarks
19:20 A good analogy since the books of the Bible were also edited and rewritten and saying so seems heretical to some. She speaks about "Shakespeare" as if the works came from one person acting alone and not, as the Henslowe Diary shows, from collaborative efforts and reworkings of earlier sources.
i have a very smart actor friend, who has done work on F1, and argues, convincingly - DON'T read S-speare - as literature! It is/wasn't but cue-scripted on the fly...
i was struck, forget the book - Hemmings and Condell never raised S-speare's share above de minimus. My recollection he was always one of the smallest sharerers and when new shares came available he was snubbed. So these tow dudes - who controlled the shares and their offspring - honoring him in a book when the wouldn't in life. Not surprised old Will turned his back on them all, London, the theatre at the end. Did he even own the rights?
A note on the digitisation of books and the "onlineification" of media.... I hold to physical books primarily because there is a soul to them, especially old books that have a history. There's something about leafing through a 70 year old tome that you simply can't capture on a Kindle. But more importantly perhaps, I just don't trust online sources that can easily be altered to subtly (or not so much) change the etymology or definitions of words as the cultural fashion and political correctness dictates.
For me, as a serious student of literature, art, S-speare and a writer adapting a S-speare play - these kinds of discussions and research are immediately useful. To me, biographical and topics like "thought processes" and why/how art is done are wasteful and pop culture myths.
Thanks Thomas for providing again the most valuable ongoing series for laymen to follow current research in things Shakespearean. Darren is pulling all the most interesting threads right now, am excited to see how he weaves them into a single fabric. Neither of you appear to be aware of the work of Peter Bull on Groatsworth - he pretty convincingly argues that the Upstart Crow is Ned Alleyn, which actually aligns well with the collaborative scene for early 1590s playwriting Darren describes.
Greene (or Chettle) was addressing fellow poets. In this context "...supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you" refers to writing, not performing. With no contemporary evidence that Alleyn was a poet in addition to being a player, there is no way to conclude that he is the "upstart crow". In addition, he was, by the time of Greene's death, the foremost actor in the leading company in England. Referring to him as an "upstart" would have been wholly inappropriate. Expecting any Shakespeare scholar to pay attention to Shakespeare deniers is...optimistic.
@@Jeffhowardmeade Bombast is stuffing used to pad doublets. To bombast blank verse is to pad it out, a practice Alleyn was accused of in order to give himself more lines as the star of the Admiral's men. The primary accusation against the Crow was usury. We have records of Alleyn's lending to actors and writers in this time including to Greene. Alleyn's family ran an Inn called the Pie (for Magpie, a corvid which was on its sign) which was a hangout for actors and writers as it was next to Fisher's Folly where several lived and just down the street from the Theater and Curtain. All of which you would know if you had read Bull's peer reviewed paper in a reputable journal. The identification with Shakespeare is preposterous for any number of reasons, as is the recent Godman claim that it is supported by Comedy of Errors. Both give Shakespeare a level of importance that is inconsistent with his presumed biography at the time.
I wish professionals were spending as much time on the creative and artistic expressive aspects of Early Modern literature as the sociology and cultural anthropology. Oh well....
I'm buying her book! Also, I think Hamlet is feminine (and so is Shakespearean Richard II). And Shakespeare punished Lady Macbeth for crossing her gender role.
Professor Strier's idea that we should not have "a priori" ideas I like and I use in my own research on Shakespeare. As I live in Kyoto, I can definitely compare this idea to the idea from ninjas (and I think it is also found in Buddhism) to "empty the mind". Then we are left with close reading as the start. Strier writes "I do not mean to suggest that the plays are treatises in disguise" (page 2), but they can be seen as that, I found, using clues from the text. "Juliet is the sun" can mean that Juliet is actually the sun, she symbolizes our closest star. And "Romeo and Juliet" carries a treatise on the history of mankind and the sun. The scenes of the lovers can be seen as symbolically depicting this history....Pagan nature spirituality is encoded in their scene at the party. Man leaves the sun (through Christianity (Juliet is on the balcony, representing the separation of nature from religion). The scene where they say goodbye symbolizes the way man leaves the sun economy to burn coal as fuel. Finally at the end (what we see now) there is a return to the sun (the tomb scene). The first line of "Romeo and Juliet" is "Gregory, on my word, we won't carry coals" (1.1.1) because Iago's "I am not what I am"---yes, unusual! It's because he represents coal. Coal tempted mankind to kill off the sun economy. That's why Desdemona has so much light imagery surrounding her. Incidentally, I was in Professor Strier's class at the U of C. around 35 years ago. I enjoyed his class very much. Yes, "Happy Hamlet" is right too. This represents how Shakespeare felt he was forced by circumstances (capitalism and coal burning) to fight his battle against these forces. He's not melancholic, he's full of fervor.
Hi Marianne Kimura, thanks for the excellent comment. Indeed, the ability to "empty the mind" of preconception is an invaluable asset to the true scholar and I believe the Buddhist practice of this concepts is a major appealing aspect of the religion. Error surrounds us, and this is worth considering when studying a subject as intrinsically rewarding and difficult as Shakespeare.
@@smaycock2 1) hist. evidence is not established by a show of famous hands 2) Edward de Vere, 17th earl of Oxford, 1550-1604 died too soon to have seen to the first authorized publication of Shakespeare's sonnets in 1609. 3) Shakespeare himself saw to this printing, according to Heywood in 1612, stating: (“W. Shakespeare)” “he, to do himself right, hath since published them in his own name” which is a reference to the 1609 publication, overseen by Shakespeare.
Neuroscience tells us knowing intention is impossible, esp one's own. Artists may say things but the opposite is likely as true as what is reported. My read is S-speare was treated poorly and ended up just doing the plays for money. Then turning his back on London and all that and returning to his family in the "country." He never looked back or really returned. He was a sharer, but his share was the lowest and never went up so...
If Professor Strier is opposed to bringing *a priori* constructs to the text then presumably he is not a Stratfordian and has an open mind on the question of the origin and authorship of the plays? 'Cause that apple cart is running on less than three wheels at this point in time.
De Vere died in 1604, could not be the author of plays written aft that date. The sonnets cannot be de Vere's but WS alone, as WS complained @ unauthorized printing.
@@xyzunodostres Your faith is touching but not relevant to anyone who has studied the actual evidence for the chronology the plays. For example, the usual example used to substantiate this argument is the Tempest, allegedly written in 1609 but actually well known at least by 1603. The truth is that no one knows exactly when any of the allegedly "late" plays were written; Timon of Athens, Pericles, and other "late" plays actually betray many signs of their compositional immaturity. Early modern plays are rarely written only a shortly before their first preserved record of existence. Maybe if you did a little more research outside of the your own assumptions you could avoid the a priori trap to which Professor Strier objects.
@@Jeffhowardmeade To me, S-speare can be seen and read as including all sorts of switcheroos and "bed tricks." What do we applaud for at the end of Merch of Venice? Is R&J abt personal love or tribal hatred? Because hate wins. Pet- seems written to be deeply in love from the get go. Perhaps the one of the most loving in all of S-speare's guy characters, all of whome, pretty much, as narcissitic and focused on violence and vengence, with some girl chasing thrown in. Pet- seems to see the brilliance in Kate immediately, beyond her destructive drives. So, when she assaults him he does not respond in kind. In contrast, all Romeo, Hamlet, Macbeth, etc do is act-out on worst impulses. It is hard with Pet, because he is so often overplayed as a buffoon. He may not be. Clearly Kate needs to tame her, mainly self-, harmful actions, Pet seems to know that deeply and give her space a wee bit, with consequences.
Portia perpetuates a fraud and lies to the court. She acts the opposite of he speech and Christian ethics - Love thy neighbor. Lies to her husband on ring. Antonio has perpetuated assault and battery against jews - all his life with no consequences. Shylock is actually freed of be his own person when stripped of all social/religious norms and caste identities. S-speare is a trickster. Romeo is a gangbanger, kills 2 guys, gets his BFF killed in a gang fight, deflowers a 13 yr old, is banished and suicides. "World's greatest love story!?" Does hate or love win in R&J, because tribal hatred wins?
