At Home in the World :::: Notes by Alexa Alice Joubin
An op-ed by Alexa Alice Joubin, originally published in Signal House.
Great stories are often strangers at home. The best of them defamiliarize banal experiences and everyday utterances while offering something recognizable through a new language and form.
...continue reading "Familiar Ambiguity: The Value of the Humanities in a Globalized World"
How might we engage with the "essence" of King Lear, or "Learness," in a networked culture? Juxtaposing the clips of the division-of-the-kingdom scene from different films allows us to reexamine our perceived ethical burden to explain Lear’s problems away. The scene in Peter Brook’s 1971 film is dominated by close-ups of Lear and other characters, framing Paul Scofield’s Lear as a solemn statue. Peter Brook’s 1962 RSC production and subsequent 1971 film of King Lear engages with the theme of ecocriticism through an apocalyptic mise-en-scène.
In contrast to Laurence Olivier’s Lear in Elliott’s 1983 film, who laughs off Cordelia’s initial response, Scofield’s Lear speaks methodically and remains stern throughout the scene, which ends with him calmly banishing Cordelia. Cordelia’s aside is cut, thereby diminishing the weight of a potentially revelatory moment as well as Cordelia’s self-discovery.
...continue reading "Teaching King Lear in a Global Context"
"Voodoo" Macbeth? Heir apparent of the Denmark Corporation in Manhattan (Hamlet 2000)? A pair of star-crossed lovers from feuding families who own competing food stalls in Singapore (Chicken Rice War). In the centuries since William Shakespeare's death, numerous stage and, more recently, film and television adaptations of his work have emerged to inspire, comfort, and provoke audiences in far-flung corners of the globe. As early as 1619, for example, Hamlet was performed in colonial Indonesia to entertain European expatriates. In 1845, U.S. Army officers staged Othello in Corpus Christi, Texas, as a distraction from the run-up to the Mexican-American War. Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival toured its production of Macbeth to several key U.S. military bases in 2004. ...continue reading "“To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores”: Shakespeare in the World"
...continue reading "“Shakespeare and Censorship,” Hay Festival, 2016"
Chaucer and Shakespeare, the global literary icons, play a major role in the digital world. This cross-disciplinary symposium puts the legacies of Chaucer and Shakespeare in conversation with each other. Speakers will explore the intersections and connections between the afterlives of Chaucer and Shakespeare in world cultures.
...continue reading "Global Chaucer and Shakespeare in a Digital World"
Voodoo Macbeth? Heir apparent of the Denmark Corporation in Manhattan? A pair of star-crossed lovers from feuding families selling chicken rice in Singapore? In the past century, stage, film, and television adaptations of Shakespeare have emerged in the UK, US, Canada, and the performance cultures of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Asia/Pacific, Africa, Latin America, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, and far-flung corners of the globe. Shakespeare’s plays often feature locations outside England, Scotland, and Wales, and characters from various parts of the world. In fact, the history of global performance dates back to Shakespeare's lifetime.
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How to cite this article:
Alexa Alice Joubin, "Shakespeare gone global," Shakespeare on the Move, https://blogs.gwu.edu/ajoubin
