Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography: A Conference

FAIN: RZ-51587-13

Folger Shakespeare Library admin by Trustees of Amherst College (Washington, DC 20003-1004)
Kathleen Lynch (Project Director: December 2012 to December 2014)

An international conference on the topic of playwright William Shakespeare and literary biography, as well as associated video podcasts and a volume of essays. (12 months)

In Shakespeare studies, textual criticism denies biography any explanatory force, while popular conceptions look precisely to the biography of William Shakespeare for insight into the works. In this standoff, the genre of literary biography is lost as a subject of serious inquiry. The Folger Institute Center for Shakespeare Studies will organize a conference for the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography" will undertake a rigorous investigation of the roles literary biography plays in the public and scholarly reception of Shakespeare, as an exemplary case study. No institution in the United States is better equipped than the Folger Shakespeare Library to analyze the history of Shakespeare's status as a cultural icon -- and none has a greater responsibility to do so. The conference gathers a cadre of influential senior scholars. It is planned in coordination with a major exhibition and a public lecture. A volume of essays is projected.

Associated Products

Shakespeare Quarterly, special issue. Vol. 65 (winter 2014). (Book)
Title: Shakespeare Quarterly, special issue. Vol. 65 (winter 2014).
Author: Gail Kern Paster, editor
Author: Andrew Hadfield, Forword
Author: Margreta De Grazia, "Shakespeare's Timeline"
Author: Julia Reinhard Lupton, "Birth Places: Shakespeare's Beliefs / Believing in Shakespeare"
Author: Lena Cowen Orlin, "Anne by Indirection"
Author: Lois Potter, "Shakespeare and other men of the Theater"
Author: Joseph Roach, "Celebrity Culture and the Problem of Biography"
Author: Brian Cummings, "Afterword: Last Words. The Biographemes of Shakespeare"
Editor: Gail Kern Paster
Abstract: From the editor: "The essays in the main body of this issue grew from papers delivered at the Folger Institute's memorable conference, "Shakespeare and the Problem of Biography," held 3-5 April 2014 as part of the Folger Shakespeare Library's multifaceted celebration of the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. . . . At the conference, questions of methodology, genre, anecdote and wish fulfillment, the role of the archive, the utility of psychoanalytic interpretation, idealization and idolatry were broached in new and exciting ways and are included in the essays printed herein."
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-quarterly
Primary URL Description: Folger Shakespeare Library website
Access Model: subscription only
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: ISSN 0037-3222
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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