Welcome to the Course

Welcome to the Globe...no, not the theatre Shakespeare’s company performed so many of his plays in, but our globe, which has become the true ‘stage’ of Shakespeare’s art.  No playwright is more performed throughout the world than Shakespeare, and not just in English; his works have been translated into almost every literary language on earth, adapted into thousands of films (again, in every conceivable language) and have inspired countless books, poems, and plays.  So who is this new, global Shakepseare?  What relationship does ‘he’ have with the man who lived in the late 16^th/early 17^th century and wrote for Queen Elizabeth and King James?  Perhaps more importantly, what can a man who wrote for boy actors in a highly poetic language dripping with classical allusion have to say to our world—a world far removed from the Anglocentric world of Shakespeare’s England?  Should we still read Shakespeare when the world offers us so many languages, traditions, and literatures to choose from?  Why stick with him? 

This class serves as an introduction to the idea of Shakespeare as a modern/global author, who is no longer fixed in his historical space (though we can learn much from that space).  Shakespeare is now a more fluid entity, able to survive the perils of linguistic and cultural adaptation to express the same profound, and (dare I say) universal ideas throughout the world.  There has never been one “Shakespeare,” and today there are thousands; in this class we will examine a few of them, both the historical and the contemporary Shakespeares that create a truly “global” author. 

This is definitely one of my “bucket list” classes to teach, and after 13 years of teaching, I’m finally ready to tackle it.  There’s a lot of ground to cover in this class, and I don’t expect you to have any background knowledge of Shakespeare coming in; however, by the time you leave, I hope you’ll have a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare’s art, as well as the power of drama to express universal and specific manifestations of culture.  This class will be particularly useful for teacher-certification majors, since you will have new ideas and approaches to the familiar plays that everyone thinks they know—but will never see like this.  I look forward to our many discussions together!