Important Dates

Summary

The culmination of events in the Postdoctoral Working Group “Shakespearean Pasts, African Futurities: Entanglements of Memory, Temporalities and Knowledge(s)” under the auspices of the Cluster of Excellence “Africa Multiple” and the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies, the workshop will reflect (on) contemporary African and African-Diasporic ways of reading Shakespeare, versions of Shakespearean plays and/or adaptations, as well as (comparatively) Shakespearean plays themselves. With double key-notes by Shakespeare/Africa experts Prof Sandra Young (University of Cape Town, South Africa) and Prof Jane Plastow (Leeds University, UK), the workshop will engage emerging re-interpretations of Shakespearean topoi, especially within African nationalist agendas, the (re)framing of prior texts vis-à-vis situated audiences as well as the synergies between various forms of genre-specific mediations. The workshop places especial stress on comparative approaches to reading Shakespeare now. Its spotlight on the complex and multiple factors, contexts, processes, media and agencies that characterize the fictional (un)making of temporalities in emerging versions of Shakespearean narratives, highlights the multiplicity, relationality and reflexivity emphases of the Cluster’s research focus. The workshop, scheduled for the 19th and 20th of February 2020, will be held at the main campus (GWI room S121).  The headliner for the closing events on the second day will be a public rehearsed reading of Nigerian writer Femi Osofisan’s adaptation Wesoo Hamlet! by the Theatre Duo (Billy Langa and Mahlatsi Mokgonyana) from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Please find the workshop schedule here.

Please find further information about the Postdoctoral Working Group “Shakespearean Pasts, African Futurities: Entanglements of Memory, Temporalities and Knowledge(s)” here.