Description
Book SynopsisThis book is the first comprehensive account of global Shakespeare commemoration in the period between 1916 and 2016. Combining historical analysis with insights into current practice, Memorialising Shakespeare covers Shakespeare commemoration in China, Ukraine, Egypt, and France, as well as Great Britain and the United States. Chapter authors discuss a broad range of commemorative activities—from pageants, dance, dramatic performances, and sculpture, to conferences, exhibitions, and more private acts of engagement, such as reading and diary writing. Themes covered include Shakespeare’s role in the formation of cultural memory and national and global identities, as well as Shakespeare’s relationship to decolonisation and race. A significant feature of the book is the inclusion of chapters from organisers of recent Shakespeare commemoration events, reflecting on their own practice. Together, the chapters in Memorialising Shakespeare show what has been at stake when communities, identity groups, and institutions have come together to commemorate Shakespeare.
Table of Contents1. Introduction: Memorialising Shakespeare, Memorialising Ourselves; Monika Smialkowska and Edmund G. C. King.- 2. From Common Reader to Canon: Memorialising the Shakespeare-Reading Soldier during the First World War; Edmund G. C. King.- 3. A Greenwich Night’s Dream: Shakespeare, Empire, and the Royal Navy in Post-Armistice Britain; Kurt Schreyer.- 4. Culture and Colonialism: The 1916 Tercentenary in Egypt; Karma Sami and Monika Smialkowska.- 5. Divergence and Convergence: The ‘Universal’ versus the National Bard; Irena R. Makaryk.- 6. French Shakespeare: From Victor Hugo to Patrice Chéreau; Dominique Goy-Blanquet.- 7. Canonising Cleopatra? Shakespeare400 and the Library, Lovers, and Saints of Alexandria; Katherine Hennessey.- 8. Citizen of the world, or citizen of nowhere? Shakespeare Lives in China in 2016; Duncan Lees.- 9. Commemorating Shakespeare through Dance and Music, 1964–2016; Elizabeth Klett.- 10. Curating Shakespeare in the North; Adam Hansen.- 11. ‘The Conceit of This Inconstant Stay’: Exhibiting Shakespeares in Eugene, Oregon; Lara Bovilsky.- 12. Afterword; Ton Hoenselaars.
