Funding available to attend World Shakespeare Congress

The British Council is supporting some scholarships to attend the congress in the UK this summer. Here's the announcement. Deadline Monday 16 November.  It would be great to see some early-career Arab Shakespeareans there.

Arab Shakespeares at WSC 2016

The World Shakespeare Congress has posted its program for next summer's WSC, to be held in Britain.We have an amazingly diverse set of topics (translation, performance, film, plays, sonnets, sources...) on our Arab Shakespeares panel, and I'm happy to see some dynamic younger scholars joining the conversation.

“Re-Casting Shakespeare: Translations, Adaptations, and Performances Across the Arab World”
Katherine Hennessey (University of Warwick/Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom), Margaret Litvin (Boston University, United States), Graham Holderness (University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom), Rafik Darragi (University of Tunis, Tunisia), David C. Moberly (University of Minnesota, United States), Noha Ibraheem (Cairo University, Egypt), Paulo Horta (New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates)

CFP: International Shakes Conference - UMass - September

Call for papers: The 2nd  International Shakespeare Conference: Translation, Adaptation, Performance
"Where in the World is Shakespeare?"
September 18-20, 2015
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA, USA

What makes Shakespeare funny in Kabul? In 2005, Corinne Jaber claimed (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that ?Afghans don't do tragedy.? This idea shaped her production of Love's Labour's Lost, which she staged with the Roy-e-Sabs Troupe in the garden of a Kabul estate formerly occupied by a nobleman 150 years ago. Making Shakespeare's humor ?work? or translate in Anglophone productions is a challenge for many contemporary directors. Making it work in Dari and in a space fraught with war and occupation poses an even more complicated set of challenges. How does such a production raise questions about the comedy genre and what makes something funny? How does it raise questions about audience or national identity? The same troupe would eventually stage Comedy of Errors (in Dari) at the Globe Theater in 2012, which signifies a transnational Shakespeare even as it re-places the play in its ?original space.?

This is one example of the degree to which Shakespeare has shifted from the centrality of an authoritative text to a multi-center model where different (and often peripheral) Shakespeares exist and cross-influence each other. In this framework, questions of authenticity and intent give way to discussions of Shakespeare in terms of influence and his works as a globalizing force. For the second edition of the International Shakespeare Conference, we seek submissions from a wide range of topics related to the translation, interpretation and adaptation of Shakespeare, including:

    Shakespeare in theater, performance, film, music, visual arts
    Shakespeare in and as pedagogy
    Shakespeare in the context of social justice
    Shakespeare and applied theater
    Shakespeare and materiality
    Case studies of Shakespeare in translation
    Digital Shakespeare(s)
    Intralingual, interlingual or intermedial translation of Shakespeare
    Imitation and reception of Shakespeare worldwide
    Comparative analyses discussing the influence of the Shakespearean linguistic or cultural legacy
    Theoretical approaches to global Shakespeare: postcolonialism, race, gender, sexuality, alterity

The conference will take place September 18-20, 2015, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Please e-mail a 250 word abstract to isc.umass@gmail.com by May 15.

Sponosred by Program in Comparative Literature | Department of English | The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies | College of Humanities and Fine Arts | International Programs Office | Translation Center

For details, visit http://umass.edu/shakespeare/ or for more information (also available in French, Polish, and Spanish), or contact Edwin Gentzler at gentzler@complit.umass.edu.

Conference call on International Shakespeare (in Amherst, MA this March)

Sounds like Arabists would be welcome... 

International Shakespeare: Translation, Adaptation, and Performance

University of Massachusetts Amherst 
8-9 March 2014 
The Translation Center in partnership with The Renaissance Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, co-sponsored by the English Department and the Comparative Literature Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, invite scholars to its first annual conference, “International Shakespeare: Translation, Adaptation, and Performance,” on March 8-9, 2014. Paper proposals are welcome on a number of topics: case studies of translation, production, imitation or reception of Shakespeare worldwide, as well as on the impact of these phenomena on the interpretation of Shakespeare’s texts. The conference can integrate theories of identity, political perspectives, translation, readership, reception and censorship. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Marie Roche (rochemarie23@gmail.com) and/or Edwin Gentzler (gentzler@complit.umass.edu)  by Jan.15, 2014.

Conference panel on Arab Shakespeare in Canada

A call for papers, due Dec 15, for the Canadian Society of Renaissance Studies. 

Among other thematic sessions:

5.  "Arabic Shakespeare"

The recent stagings of Shakespeare in Arabic in the UK and the Middle East would suggest that the Arabization of Shakespeare is a recent phenomenon. But this is not the case at all. This session aims to look at various ways Shakespeare has been, and continues to be, read or staged in the Arabic-speaking world. The topics are open, and the following are presented only for the purpose of generating ideas:

• Shakespeare's plays translated: how, why, what alterations?
• The Sonnets in translation
• Shakespeare as intertext
• Shakespeare in Middle Eastern historical context

Please send your proposal (of not more than 500 words) to the organizer of this session: Joseph Khoury (jkhoury@stfx.ca).

 And here's the fine print:

I write to call your attention to an upcoming deadline of Dec. 15, 2012 for proposals for the annual conference of the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies to be held at the University of Victoria 1-3 June 2013.  The CSRS invites proposals in English or in French on any Renaissance topic in a variety of disciplines : literature, history, philosophy, music, art history, medicine, cultural studies to the Program Director, Gary Kuchar, (kucharg@uvic.ca).

All proposals must be submitted no later than December 15, 2012.  Papers must not exceed 20 minutes in delivery. All participants must be members of the CSRS. To renew or apply for membership, please contact Margaret Reeves, Department of Critical Studies (English), 351A Fine Arts Bldg., University of British Columbia - Okanagan Campus, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, B.C. V1V 1V7 (margaret.reeves@ubc.ca).

 I hope someone will take this opportunity to grapple with Kamal Abu Dib's new translation of the sonnets!

Early registration deadline for World Shakespeare Congress

Prague! Shakespeare!  Tuesday is your last chance for discounted early registration at the World Shakespeare Congress, to be held July 18-22.

Rafik Darragi and I are co-organizing what promises to be a small and interesting seminar on "Shakespeare on the Arab Stage."  Scheduled for the last afternoon of the conference, so if the discussion gets really exciting we can adjourn directly to the pub.  Stalkers and gawkers welcome!  Download the draft program here: http://www.shakespeare2011.net/repository/doc/shakespeare2011-prague-congress-programme-matrix.pdf

Daily Star covers our Shakespeare conference at AUB

Under the nice headline "Was Shakespeare an Orientalist?" Beirut's Daily Star covers  our just-concluded conference on "Shakespeare's Imagined Orient" at AUB.  Splendidly organized by Francois-Xavier Gleyzon of AUB's English department, the conference staged a conversation some of the most important scholars working to remap Shakespeare's relationship to the Muslim world.  Five men were at the center of this conversation: Jerry Brotton, Dan Vitkus, Gerald Maclean, Jonathan Burton, and Gil Harris.  My talk was really marginal to the whole thing (I'm not an early modernist), but for obvious journalistic reasons (even if she is not Arab, her readers are), the Daily Star reporter seized on it.  She thus ironically supported Ferial Ghazoul's thesis (in "The Arabization of Othello"), which my talk was trying to problematize: the idea that when Arabs look at Shakespeare, "their point of view" (many Arabs, one point of view) leads them to an immediate and almost exclusive focus on the representation of people like themselves.  Well, perhaps such narcissism is only human. Which of us can pick up a friend's book without looking up our own name in the index?

"Annual Shakespeare Conference" at Biblioteca Alexandrina

Apparently the Shakespeare conference held in April at the Biblioteca Alexandrina is now an annual event.  This year's conference was devoted to "The Politics of Power in Shakespeare's History Plays." BA director Ismail Serageldin gave a lecture as part of the proceedings.

Beirut conference: "Shakespeare's Imagined Orient"

More information on the "Shakespeare's Imagined Orient" conference at AUB next month.  Conference schedule to be posted soon.  Meanwhile abstracts of plenary talks are up, and registration is here.  If you are in Beirut, please come check it out!

Call for Papers - Arab Shakespeare in Prague, July 2011

Rafik Darragi and I are co-convening this seminar at the next WSC. Co-conspirators welcome. Prague should be lovely... Please send a 250-word abstract by August 1, 2009 to mlitvin@bu.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS
9th World Shakespeare Congress
Prague, July 17-21, 2011

Seminar: Shakespeare on the Arab Stage

In many Arab countries, top directors and playwrights have appropriated Shakespearean characters and/or plots to produce original theatrical works. Their plays range from parody and pastiche to metatheatrical reflection, political satire, and even tragedy. Such work is now gaining prominence in the West as well as in the Arab world. For instance, an Iraqi dramatist’s adaptation of Hamlet received a rehearsed reading at the 8th World Shakespeare Congress in 2006. The same year, an “Arab” version of Richard III was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, later touring to several European countries and the United States.
Building on the enthusiasm and questions sparked by the Arab Shakespeare panel at the previous World Shakespere Congress (Brisbane, 2006), this seminar will explore the diverse dramatic adaptations of Shakespeare that have flourished in the Arab world in recent years. Participants are invited to:

• Analyze one or more Arab/ic productions or adaptations of Shakespeare plays (19th- or 20th-century or contemporary).
• Consider the production and/or reception contexts of one or more Arab/ic Shakespeare appropriations.
• Contribute to a discussion that aims to develop a typology or map of Arab Shakespeare appropriation more broadly. Given the perfectly naturalized status of Shakespeare’s plays in some Arab theatre cultures and their “foreigner” status in others, what generalizations about “Arab” Shakespeare should be made or avoided?
• Help pinpoint some relevant paradigms for theorizing this young but growing sub-field of Shakespeare studies. In particular: is “intercultural appropriation” a fruitful theoretical approach at all?

Background
Until recently, scholars of “worldwide Shakespeare appropriation” have known little about such work. For decades, the Arab world went largely unnoticed in the numerous edited volumes on “intercultural” or “foreign” Shakespeare; Arab scholars at international Shakespeare conferences were a rare sight. When scholars in the West did bring “Arab Shakespeare” to their colleagues’ attention, they presented it almost as a novelty. (Sometimes they did not hesitate to draw easy laughs by invoking the old joke that Shakespeare was really a crypto-Arab, “Shaykh Zubayr.”) Only in the past few years has this situation begun to change, with well-received studies on and productions of Arabic Shakespeare-related plays. This seminar will celebrate that change and build on it, asking what the study of Arab Shakespeare can bring to the study of international Shakespeare appropriation more broadly.