S H A KS P E R:

The Global Electronic Shakespeare Conference

SHAKSPER is the international electronic conference for Shakespearean researchers, instructors, students, and those who share their academic interests and concerns. It currently includes approximately 1,300 SHAKSPEReans, from Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia/Hrvatska, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, England, Fiji Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, the United States, Ukraine, Wales, and Yugoslavia.

SHAKSPER offers the opportunity for the formal exchange of ideas through queries and responses regarding literary, critical, textual, theoretical, and performative topics and issues. Announcements of conferences, of calls for papers, of seminars, of lectures, of symposia, of job openings, of the publication of books, of the availability of online and print articles, of Internet databases and resources, of journal contents, of festivals, and of academic programs of study are a regular features as are reviews of scholarly books, of past and present theatrical productions, and of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-inspired films -- in addition to "popular" culture references to Shakespeare or his works.

SHAKSPER is an edited and moderated e-mail discussion list; the Editor only posts contributions that he believes are of interest to the academic Shakespearean community. For readers' convenience, these messages are lightly edited and grouped in separate digests according to topic. Significant questions and comments from actors, directors, or any member of list are welcome. The source of the post is not the issue; the issue is its relevance to the broad scope of academic interests in Shakespeare studies. For more information about this policy, see < http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2006/0000.html>. Contributions that are clearly irresponsible, offensive, or apart from SHAKSPER's purpose, including those concerning the so-called "Authorship Question," will be ignored.

Technically, SHAKSPER is a LISTSERV "list" running under RedHat Enterprise Linux ES on a Dell PowerEdge 1800 server with dual Xeon 3.0GHz processors, 4GB of memory, 4 250GB SATA Hard Drives in a RAID 10 configuration. Hardy M. Cook, the list editor, can be reached either at <editor@shaksper.net> or at the list address <editor@shaksper.net> .

There are no academic qualifications for or restrictions on membership to SHAKSPER; anyone interested in English Literature, the Renaissance, or drama is welcome to join. SHAKSPER is not open to automatic subscription, so to receive further instructions on how to become a member of SHAKSPER, send a one-line e-mail message, reading "SUB SHAKSPER firstname lastname" to <LISTSERV@shaksper.net> .