March
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.132 Friday, 23 March 2012
From: JD Markel <
Date: March 22, 2012 3:16:39 PM EDT
Subject: Re: Fat
I believe the solution is “phat,” as so:
And duller shouldst thou be than the phat weed,
That roots itself in ease on Lethe (i.e., lethargy’s) wharf.
Hamlet 1.5.32-33.
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.131 Friday, 23 March 2012
From: John Drakakis <
Date: March 22, 2012 11:14:48 AM EDT
Subject: RE: SHAKSPER: London
Terence Hawkes notes a forthcoming performance at the New Globe theatre of Cymbeline in Juba Arabic, but regrets the absence of one in semaphore. Presumably performances in Welsh or Gaelic would be beyond the pale since they would undermine any message of world unity that this curious venture appears designed send. Political correctness goes only so far.
But is there, perhaps a more serious point to be made. Why the performances of Shakespeare in 37 languages in a space that claims to be quintessentially ‘English’ (even though it is not exactly on the true site of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre)? Or is this back-door imperialism, the hubristic last gasp of a Tory minority government trying to stake its claim to universalism in the wake of the imminent break-up of the ‘united kingdom’? It seems that we are not ‘all in it together’ after all.
Just a thought,
John Drakakis
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.130 Friday, 23 March 2012
From: Patty Winter <
Date: March 22, 2012 5:39:47 PM EDT
Subject: British Library’s Original Pronunciation Project
Actor Ben Crystal and his father, linguistics professor David Crystal, have worked with the British Library to create a CD of Shakespeare excerpts read in original pronunciation. Here’s the library’s press release:
And here are two newspaper article, one of which has some samples from the CD:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9143302/How-should-Shakespeare-really-sound.html
Patty
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.129 Friday, 23 March 2012
From: British Shakespeare Association <
Date: March 23, 2012 8:43:41 AM EDT
Subject: BSA Education Network & Online Teaching Shakespeare
British Shakespeare Association
Dear Colleague,
New magazine and website for teaching Shakespeare & Shakespeare in Education, from the BSA
I am pleased to announce that the British Shakespeare Association’s magazine, Teaching Shakespeare, and the BSA Education Network, Shakespeare in Education, are now available online. To visit the new blog/website and to download the free pilot issue of Teaching Shakespeare, please go to the BSA Education Network: http://shakespeareineducation.com/
Please help! Here’s how you can help us to keep Teaching Shakespeare in print: if you think your library might subscribe, now is the time to suggest purchase of the next two issues (£10 for September 2012 and February 2013, p&p included). If you think it might help to be able to show a print copy of the pilot to whomsoever controls your periodicals budget, please contact me
We hope that you will visit the website to read the opening blog by BSA trustee Peter Kirwan, of Nottingham University and, perhaps, to leave a comment on my own post that asks ‘How do you use theatre performances in your teaching?’ If you would like to submit a piece yourself, please contact the site Administrator, Sylvia Morris
Contributions from our readers are most welcome.
We are also keen to post details of conferences and educational events to do with Shakespeare. When you visit the BSA Education Network, be sure to click on ‘Events’ http://shakespeareineducation.com/category/events/ to read about two exciting posts, one from Jane Coles and the other from Tracy Irish. Jane, together with Liam Semler of the University of Sydney, is organising a free symposium, Unlearning Shakespeare, on 28th June 2012 at Oxford Brookes University, where she teaches in the School of Education.
Tracy Irish’s ‘Call for Abstracts’ gives details of a major international conference, Worlds Together: an international conference exploring the value of Shakespeare and the arts in young people’s lives, taking place on London’s South Bank, from 6th- 8th September 2012. Tate Modern, the British Museum, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company will be collaborating to consider ask ‘what is at stake for children’s cultural lives today. N.B. The deadline for abstracts (250 words) is 31st March. Tracy reports that ‘concessions on the ticket price may be available for UK contributors’, adding that ‘further details of bursaries and concessions will follow the submission of a successful abstract’.
Please spread the word about the BSA, by forwarding this email to any of your contacts interested in teaching Shakespeare and Shakespeare in Education. If you are on Facebook or Twitter, you can use the link on the Home/Welcome page of the Education Network website.
With thanks and all good wishes,
James (Stredder),
Chair of the Education Committee
The British Shakespeare Association
The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 23.128 Thursday, 22 March 2012
From: Michael Zito <
Date: March 21, 2012 9:34:39 PM EDT
Subject: Fat/“the fat weed”
In a recent post, Marie Merkel referred to “the fat weed,” which led
me to chew on this: that the remarks about the “fat weed” and the
concerns of the Ghost of King Hamlet about the possibility of his
son’s inaction/lethargy are quite interesting and insightful, almost
as if to say or suggest the analogy:
King Hamlet : King Henry IV :: Prince Hamlet : Prince Hal
And indeed it goes so heavily with Hamlet’s disposition,
mz