BSDN symposium number five

Dubrovnik

The end of theory and of New Historicism, which has been debated in Shakespeare criticism for a while, has only created conditions, it seems, for new theories and new forms of historicism to take over as self-proclaimed models of interpretation. But this end has also offered an opportunity to think about theory, historicism, and criticism in a number of different ways. These might include:

·        encounters between Shakespeare’s text and other literary texts;

·        remembering early criticism that prepared for structuralist, historicist, materialist and ideological interpretations;

·        relating Shakespeare to apparently unrelated modern thinkers, philosophers and writers

·        finding undiscovered features and phenomena in Shakespeare that seem to anticipate modern critical outlooks;

·        looking afresh at sources, and instead seeing in them critical and intellectual intersections with the plays, as  resources that animate beyond influence.

All these relate to larger questions for contemporary Shakespeare scholars. What does it mean to write about Shakespeare now? Who are the audiences—beyond ourselves—for whom we wish to write about Shakespeare? What does ‘Shakespeare’ now mean, in Europe, Britain, North America, Asia and beyond? Can there be writing about Shakespeare after, or without, theory, or after and outside historicism? And, most insistent of all: whose contemporary is Shakespeare in the 21^st century?

The symposium will be chaired by professor Stuart Sillars, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB.