Research Symposium: “Shakespeare and the Body Politic”
Convened by Dr Karin Sellberg (University of Queensland) and Dr Cathy Curtis (University of Queensland)
Monday, 28 November 2016, 9:00am-5:00pm
Toowong Rowing Club, 37 Keith St, St Lucia
Bringing together expertise in the fields of the history of political thought, the history of medicine, gender studies, and literary criticism, this cross-disciplinary symposium will reconsider conceptions of the “body politic” in Shakespeare and other early modern authors.
Cathy Curtis is a Honorary Senior Fellow in the UQ School of International Studies and Political Science. She is completing a book entitled Thomas More, Public Offices, and the Ideal Commonwealth, and researches in the areas of early modern political and religious thought, international history, and literature. She has published on Shakespeare, Juan Luis Vives, Thomas More, and Richard Pace, and on methodology and rhetoric.
Karin Sellberg is a Postdoctoral Fellow in UQ’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. She is a literary scholar and cultural theorist, with a specific interest in early modern medicine and discourses of gender and embodiment. She recently published an edited collection entitled Corporeality and Culture: Bodies in Movement (Ashgate, 2015) and has a forthcoming monograph entitled His/Herstories: The Textual Makings of Transgender Bodies(Ashgate, 2016).
This research symposium will consist of a series of scholarly papers. Honours and Postgraduate students and researchers in all areas of the humanities are particularly invited to attend.
Registration is free. RSVP here
This event is part of a commemorative series celebrating the 400-year history of the works of William Shakespeare. Full series information here
Presented by the UQ Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and the UQ Node of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800).
About The Delighted Spirit: Shakespeare at UQ 2016
In Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Caesar’s assassins anticipate that their killing of the tyrant will be performed in theatres far into the future – and even in languages and lands unknown to the conspirators themselves: “How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over / In states unborn and accents yet unknown!” Shakespeare’s own dramatic works have displayed this extraordinary quality of adaptability and transportability: they are themselves “acted over” in numerous places far away from Shakespeare’s native land, and in countless languages “unknown” to Shakespeare himself.
The University of Queensland has a long and distinguished history of supporting the study of Shakespeare and his age. Shakespeare has been taught at the University since classes began in 1911, when Hermiene Ulrich, UQ’s first lecturer in literature (and the first woman teacher of literature at an Australian university) assigned Henry V,Twelfth Night, King Lear, and The Tempest for students in her course on Modern Language and Literature. Ulrich’s successor, J. J. Stable, was, as well as being a promoter of Australian literature, a scholar of Shakespeare: in 1936 he edited Julius Caesar for the Australian Students’ Shakespeare series, published by Oxford University Press.
In 2016 the University will mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death by hosting a series of lectures, symposia, concerts, film screenings, workshops, performances, a rare-book exhibition, and other events exploring the ways in which Shakespeare continues to delight, provoke, and fascinate those who engage with his works. The series is entitled The Delighted Spirit, a phrase taken from Claudio’s speech in Act Three, Scene One, of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, in which Claudio gives an impassioned plea for “worldly life”—life which, he insists, is always, and no matter how full of hardships, to be preferred “To what we fear of death”. This series of commemorative events, then, will explore the life in Shakespeare’s works—how they continue to live on and inspire, stimulate, and give pleasure in “states unborn and accents yet unknown”.
…the delighted spirit…
-- William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III.i.121
| Date | Event | Location | Further information |
|---|---|---|---|
|
31 March 2016 - 2 April 2016 |
Performance: "Dare to Share: The Infant Soldier", Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble | Geoffrey Rush Drama Studio, UQ St Lucia Campus | Click here |
| 20 April 2016 |
Series Launch: “Shakespeare and Modern Life” by Professor Indira Ghose (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) with Sarah Kanowski, ABC Radio National |
Long Room, Customs House, Brisbane City | |
| 22 April 2016 - 25 May 2016 | Film Series: "Shakespeare on Screen", in collaboration with GOMA | Australian Cinémathèque, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art | Click here |
| 23 April 2016 | Special Event: "Shakespeare on Screen" Forum | Queensland Gallery of Modern Art | Click here |
| 23 April 2016 | Performance: "Shakespeare's Shorts", Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble | Davies Park Farmers' Market, Davies Park, West End, Brisbane | Click here |
| 24 April 2016 | Performance: "Shakespeare's Shorts", Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble | The Gap Farmers' Market, 104 Kaloma Rd, The Gap, Brisbane | Click here |
| 11 May 2016 | Lecture and Panel Discussion: "Shakespeare & Co.: The Bard and His Peers in the Digital Age" by Professor Hugh Craig (University of Newcastle) | FW Robinson Reading Room, Fryer Library, Level 4, Duhig building, UQ St Lucia Campus | Click here |
| 2 May - 31 May 2016 | Rare Book Exhibition: "My Library Was Dukedom Large Enough" | Fryer Library, Duhig building, UQ St Lucia Camps | Click here |
| 29 May 2016 | Concert: "Shakespearean Feast", The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, with guest choirs | Queensland Performing Arts Centre | Click here |
| 5 June 2016 | Lecture and Silent Film Screening: "Shakespeare's Romans" Professor Alastair Blanshard and Dr Shushma Malik (The University of Queensland) | Room E109, Forgan Smith building, UQ St Lucia Campus | Click here |
| 12 June 2016 | Lecture and Concert: "Shakespeare's Songs", The Badinerie Players, with pre-concert lecture by Professor Tom Bishop (University of Auckland) | UQ Art Museum | Click here |
| 13 June 2016 | Professional Development Seminar: "Not Only Musical in Himself...", Professor Tom Bishop (University of Auckland) | Room 275, Global Change Institute, UQ St Lucia Campus | Click here |
| 17 August 2016 - 10 September 2016 | Performance: Twelfth Night, Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble | Roma Street Parkland Amphitheatre, Brisbane City, and Redlands Performing Arts Centre, Cleveland | Click here |
| 27 October 2016 | Concert: "Shakespeare in the Opera House" directed by Vanessa Strydom (University of Queensland) | UQ School of Music, Zelman Cowan building, UQ St Lucia Campus | Click here |
| 28 November 2016 | Research Symposium: "Shakespeare and the Body Politic", Dr Karin Sellberg and Dr Cathy Curtis (University of Queensland) | Toowong Rowing Club, St Lucia | Click here |