Shakespeare: From the Globe to the Global

FAIN: EH-50239-10

Folger Shakespeare Library admin by Trustees of Amherst College (Washington, DC 20003-1004)
Kathleen Lynch (Project Director: March 2010 to January 2011)
Michael Neill (Project Director: January 2011 to April 2014)
Michael Neill (Co Project Director: March 2010 to January 2011)
Kathleen Lynch (Co Project Director: January 2011 to April 2014)

Funding details:
Original grant (2010) $196,053.00
Supplement (2011) $10,000.00

A five-week college and university teacher institute for twenty participants to examine the history of reception, adaptation, translation, and re-conceptualization of Shakespeare's works.

In today's multicultural classrooms, a nuanced understanding of such early modern English concepts as nation, race, and imperial destiny is needed to address the culturally sensitive issues raised in many of Shakespeare's plays. This institute, sponsored by the Folger Institute's Center for Shakespeare Studies, will equip college teachers to introduce their students to Shakespeare in his global and historical contexts. His plays initially reflected the concerns of an expanding early modern world. Shakespeare emerged as a voice and an icon of empire and Englishness. He is now the most significant representative of a globalized literary culture and the most popular playwright of the non-Anglophone world. Twenty participants will examine this history of reception, adaptation, translation, and re-appropriation. With a distinguished faculty and the unparalleled Folger collections, they will integrate their discoveries into their courses and disseminate them through a resource-rich website.