We are delighted to co-organize and host the second edition of the Shakespeare Conference, which brings together leading scholars and researchers from the best English departments in Romania with counterparts from Ireland, France, Italy, Turkey, Poland, Great Britain, Japan, USA, United Arab Emirates. The event is a joint initiative of the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, the West University of Timişoara, Romania, and the Romanian Society for English and American Studies and is carried out in partnership with the reputed London Shakespeare Centre at King's College.
Guest speakers at the 2014 edition, which examines the Bard's reception in various cultures, are two seminal authors of Shakespeare studies: Professor Sonia Massai from King's College London and Professor Susan Bennett from the University of Calgary, Canada.
The participants include influential Romanian Anglicists like professors Pia Brânzeu and Reghina Dascăl from the West University of Timişoara, Mădălina Nicolaescu from the University of Bucharest and George Volceanov from the Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, and Emil Sârbulescu from the University of Craiova.
The conference will take place at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London (1 Belgrave Square, SW1X8PH), on Friday 14th of November and Saturday 15th of November 2014. If you would like to attend please call 02077520134 or get in touch with us via e-mail at office@icr-london.co.uk
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
FRIDAY, NOV 14
9.00 - 9.30 Registration
9.30 - 10.30 Plenary session 1
GEORGE VOLCEANOV
Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania
Shakespeare 450 - 4.50
10.30 - 12.00 Concurrent sessions
Session 1 Moderator: Wai Fong Cheang
URSZULA KIZELBACH
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
kula@wa.amu.edu.pl
'The rest is not silence': Jan Klata's Hamlet in Bochum (2013)
PIA BRÂNZEU
West University of Timişoara, Romania
piabrinzeu@gmail.com
Old Weakling, Jealous Fool: Marin Sorescu's Shakespeare
MĂDĂLINA NICOLAESCU
University of Bucharest, Romania
madalinanicolaescu@gmail,com
The Circulation of 19th Century Shakespeare Adaptations on the Territory of Present-day Romania
Session 2 Moderator: Andreea Şerban
EMER MCHUGH
Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway, Ireland
emer.a.mchugh@gmail.com
What you will? Queering Shakespeare on the Irish stage
MIGUEL TERUEL, PILAR EZPELETA, VICENT MONTALT
University of València, Spain University Jaume I Castellón, Spain
Miguel.Teruel@uv.es ezpeleta@uji.es montalt@uji.es
Giving Shakespeare New Identities in the Catalan and Spanish Context: A Case Study
DANA PERCEC, CODRUŢA GOŞA
West University of Timişoara, Romania
danachetri@email.com; codrutagosa@yahoo.co.uk
Some Ado about How Tertiary Romanian Students Read and Watch a Shakespearean Comedy
12.00 - 12.30 Coffee break
12.30 - 13.30 Plenary session 2
SONIA MASSAI
King's College London, UK
Shakespeare With and Without Its Language
13.30 - 15.00 Lunch break
15.00 - 16.30 Concurrent sessions
Session 1 Moderator: Pia Brânzeu
MAGDALENA CIEŚLAK University of Łódź, Institute of English Studies, Department of Drama and pre-1800 English Literature, Łódź, Poland mcieslak@uni.lodz.pl, magdalenacieslak@yahoo.co.uk 'She's the Man' - the Cultural Politics of Shakespeare's Cross-dressing Heroines on Screen
WAI FONG CHEANG
Chang Gung University, Taiwan, Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA
cheangwf@mail.cgu.edu.tw
Women and Visual Representations of Spaces in Two Chinese Film Adaptations of Hamlet
YUKIKO MORI
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Division of Language and Culture Studies argo@cc.tuat.ac.jp Sweets for the Sweet? - Flowers in The Bad Sleep Well
Session 2 Moderator: Mylène Lacroix
HATICE KARAMAN
Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
hatice.karaman@yeditepe.edu.tr
The Mother that is not One: Reflections of Motherhood in Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet, The Tempest and The Taming of The Shrew
ADRIANA RĂDUCANU
Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
adiarna@hotmail.com
The Ghost Tradition: Helen of Troy in the Elizabethan Era
REGHINA DASCĂL
West University of Timişoara, Romania
reghina_dascal@yahoo.co.uk
Appropriating a Female Voice: Nicholas Breton and the Countess of Pembroke
16.30 - 17.00 Coffee break
17.00 - 18.30 Concurrent sessions
Session 1 Moderator: Reghina Dascăl
VÍCTOR HUERTAS MARTÍN
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) / Universidad Camilo José Cela (UCJC) / Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (UFV), Madrid, Spain
cuccioli25@hotmail.com
Rupert Goold's Richard II (2012): a Network of Visual Intertextuality. Genre, Iconography and Popular References
IVONA MISTEROVA
Department of English Language and Literature at the University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic
yvonne@kaj.zcu.cz
Macbethian Reminiscences: Macbeth in the Context of Twentieth-century Events
ANDREEA ŞERBAN
West University of Timişoara, Romania
The Macbeths: Manga-fying Shakespeare's Ruthless Couple
Session 2 Moderator: Codruţa Goşa
MYLÈNE LACROIX
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France
lacroix.mylene@gmail.com
' 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon' (MWW, 4.1.43): on a Few Renderings of Shakespeare's Cross-language and Translation-based Wordplay
VALERIA TIRABASSO
University of Trento, Italy
valeria.tirabasso@unitn.it
Magic, Music and XVII Century Naples on the Background of Eduardo's La Tempesta
ABDULLA AL DABBAGH
United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
aaldabbagh@uaeu.ac.ae
The Arab Celebration of Shakespeare
Session 3 Moderator: Adriana Răducanu
ROWLAND WYMER
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge UK
Rowland.Wymer@anglia.ac.uk
Syskonnbäd 1782: The Swedish Adaptation of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
ZITA TURI
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest Hungary
turi.zita@gmail.com
Knaves, Fools, and Villains - Moral Criticism in Thomas Dekker's The Whore of Babylon
SATURDAY, NOV 15
10.00 - 11.00 Plenary Session 3
SUSAN BENNETT
University of Calgary, Canada
Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad (and in Stratford, London and Qatar)
11.00 - 11.30 Coffee break
11.30 - 13.00 Panel
Contemporary Shakespeares in Central and Eastern Europe
NICOLETA CINPOES ANETA MANCEWICZ MÁRTA MINIER
University of Worcester, UK Kingston University, UK University of South Wales, UK
n.cinpoes@worc.ac.uk aneta.mancewicz@gmail.com marta.minier@southwales.ac.uk
ALEKSANDRA SAKOWSKA
King's College London
aleksandra.sakowska@kcl.ac.uk
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 - 15.00 Plenary session 4
EMIL SÂRBULESCU
University of Craiova, Romania
emilsirb@gmail.com
To Adapt, to Adopt and the Difference an 'o' Makes: Shakespearean Appropriations on a Provincial Stage
ABSTRACTS
PIA BRÂNZEU
West University of Timişoara, Romania
piabrinzeu@gmail.com
Old Weakling, Jealous Fool: Marin Sorescu's Shakespeare
In Coz Shakespeare (1990/1992), a play by the Romanian writer Marin Sorescu, a defamatory portrait of Shakespeare subverts the traditional image of the great author who has won a place of honour in the literary canons of all ages. Sorescu's unconventional Shakespeare is a weak and exhausted creature, who seeks a younger collaborator to help him surpass his shortness of ideas and deficiency of expression. He finds him in a Romanian playwright named Sorescu, whose dedication to the stage, Shakespeare believes, might help him cure his creative weariness. Sorescu accepts the challenge, believing that Shakespeare is a close literary relative, a 'coz' with whom he identifies, although he positions himself on a much lower artistic level. The cooperation of the two playwrights suggests the deep spiritual affinities that exist between a minor European culture and the powerful civilization of the Brits.
WAI FONG CHEANG
Chang Gung University, Taiwan, Visiting Scholar at Harvard University, USA
E-mail address: cheangwf@mail.cgu.edu.tw
Women and Visual Representations of Spaces in Two Chinese Film Adaptations of Hamlet
This paper studies two Chinese film adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Xiaogang Feng's The Banquet (2006) and Sherwood Hu's Prince of the Himalayas (2006), by focusing on their visual representations of spaces allotted to women. It believes that though on the original Shakespearean stage details of various spaces might not be vividly represented as that in modern film productions, spaces are still crucial dramatic elements imbued with powerful significations. By analyzing the two Chinese film adaptations alongside the original Hamlet text, the paper attempts to reinterpret their different representations of spaces in relation to their different historical-cultural gender notions.
MAGDALENA CIEŚLAK University of Łódź, Institute of English Studies, Department of Drama and pre-1800 English Literature, Łódź, Poland mcieslak@uni.lodz.pl, magdalenacieslak@yahoo.co.uk 'She's the Man' - the Cultural Politics of Shakespeare's Cross-dressing Heroines on Screen
One of the conventions of major significance in the Elizabethan theatre was the fact that only men were allowed to perform on public stages. Another crucial aspect was the low degree of theatrical illusion and reliance on the audience's suspense of disbelief. Shakespeare wrote for those particular conventions, imagining his Juliets and Rosalinds as young men in women's clothes whom the audience would be willing to accept as women. What happens, however, when the cross-dressing heroines of the Elizabethan stage are shifted to contemporary cinema? What happens to Viola when she must be played by a woman? This presentation, analyzing selected film adaptations of Shakespeare's comedies, aims to show how the dissonances in the area of cross-dressing and gender representation are dealt with in mainstream cinema.
NICOLETA CINPOES ANETA MANCEWICZ MÁRTA MINIER
University of Worcester, UK Kingston University, UK University of South Wales, UK
n.cinpoes@worc.ac.uk aneta.mancewicz@gmail.com marta.minier@southwales.ac.uk
ALEKSANDRA SAKOWSKA
King's College London
aleksandra.sakowska@kcl.ac.uk
Panel: Contemporary Shakespeares in Central and Eastern Europe
100 years after Jan Kott's birth and 50 years after the publication of Shakespeare Our Contemporary in English, the panel examines the legacy of political interpretations of Shakespeare in what has been, until recently, Central and Eastern Europe. In the context of changing political, social and critical paradigms in Shakespearean performance, the panel seeks to address the notion of political theatre. What makes theatre political? To what extent is it the process of production and the historical context and to what extent is it the actual impact of performance on the current events? Has the notion of political theatre changed after 1989 and does it vary across Central and Eastern Europe? In what sense is Shakespeare our contemporary now?
ABDULLA AL DABBAGH
United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
aaldabbagh@uaeu.ac.ae
The Arab Celebration of Shakespeare
The best of early Arab translations of Shakespeare were 'celebratory' in the sense that they were attempts by Arab poets to turn Shakespeare's works into dramatic and moving Arabic poetry, though often at the expense of accuracy and fidelity to the text. A number of major Arab poets, particularly in the early days of colonial power, also wrote panegyrics on Shakespeare. Arab Shakespeare criticism has also uniquely maintained that Shakespeare had strong roots in Arab/Islamic culture. The repercussions of such a critical tradition have had enormous implications for the wider issues of cultural memory and national identity
REGHINA DASCĂL
West University of Timișoara, Romania
reghina_dascal@yahoo.co.uk
Appropriating a Female Voice: Nicholas Breton and the Countess of Pembroke
The sixteenth century author Nicholas Breton appropriates a female voice in many of his writings, among which Marie Magdalens Loue and The Pilgrimage to Paradise joined with the Countesse of Penbrookes Loue feature prominently. The Countess of Pembroke celebrated by Aemilia Lanyer in her Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum as a paragon of female devotion, is often associated in Breton's texts with Mary Magdalene. The paper will analyse some of the anxieties engendered by this appropriation of voice and of the Magdalene figure, anxieties that prove to be disruptive of Elizabethan hierarchies.
VÍCTOR HUERTAS MARTÍN
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) / Universidad Camilo José Cela (UCJC) / Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (UFV), Madrid, Spain
cuccioli25@hotmail.com
Rupert Goold's Richard II (2012): a Network of Visual Intertextuality. Genre, Iconography and Popular References
This paper tackles the visual framework of Richard II (2012), the first episode of The Hollow Crown series. Considering the impact of visual signifiers on the Elizabethan stage and cinematic frame, the film-maker achieves an effect of repetition that is not necessarily accurate in historical terms but that satisfies the viewers' expectations of the genre and untangles meanings within the film. Therefore, the paper examines conventions employed by Rupert Goold, that range from medieval, Western, and heritage films, to Christological iconography and historical pageantry. It also deals with the visually significant presence of well-known British actors and the inspiration for Richard's portrayal in Biblical motifs or popular culture icons like Wilde, Morrissey, or Michael Jackson.
HATICE KARAMAN
Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
hatice.karaman@yeditepe.edu.tr
The Mother, which is not One: Reflections of Motherhood in Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet, The Tempest, and The Taming of The Shrew
In many of his plays, Shakespeare opted for focusing on 'daughters' instead of 'mothers', despite the phallogocentric perspective which associates women with and defines them through motherhood. Nevertheless, the lack of proper motherhood (or, alternatively, 'the aporetic mother-figure') in Shakespeare's plays has been a point of attraction for many feminist critics, actively engaged in emphasizing the patriarchal aspect of the Bard's plays. This paper aims to analyse motherhood and the lack of the mother/mother-figure in The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew through Luce Irigaray's theory of gender as well as the works of other feminist critics.
URSZULA KIZELBACH
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
kula@wa.amu.edu.pl
'The rest is not silence': Jan Klata's Hamlet in Bochum (2013)
Jan Klata staged his H. in the Gdańsk shipyard in 2004 to comment on a 'post-Solidarity' Poland, the country at the crossroads of tradition and modernity after the economic and political transformations of 1989 (Hamlet's Father's Ghost was a reminder of the glorious past with its patriotic ideals, now forgotten). In his latest Hamlet, whose premiere was held in Shauspielhaus in Bochum on 9 March 2013, Klata portrays a modern-day Hamlet figure, this time played by a German actor (the actor who used to play Hamlet in 2004 was cast in the roles of Old Hamlet and Fortinbras). Despite a very Elizabethan stylization, all actors live and behave as if they were contemporary celebrities: Hamlet's death is a great public performance, Gertrude and Claudius's marriage is solely based on acting. Books are ubiquitous, they are scattered all over the stage, but they seem to represent no real value to anyone; they function as a burial place for Ophelia. I would like to analyse and interpret certain characters and scenes from the play Hamlet (2013) to comment on the modern Polish theatre and on the contemporary situation in Poland.
MYLÈNE LACROIX
Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France
lacroix.mylene@gmail.com
' 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon' (MWW, 4.1.43): on a Few Renderings of Shakespeare's Cross-language and Translation-based Wordplay
The purpose of this paper is to provide a typology of cross-language punning in the scenes that derive their comic energy from translation-based situations. After a brief overview, I shall deal with the question of the problematic translation as well as staging of those multilingual scenes, particularly through the analysis and diachronic comparison of a number of translations of The Merry Wives of Windsor into French. Indeed, the macaronic Latin lesson that takes place at the beginning of Act 4 relies so heavily on Latin/English punning that it borders on untranslatability and represents a real stumbling block for the French-speaking translator. I would like to demonstrate that, far from being inevitably doomed, translation (or rewriting) into French is not only achievable but also highly desirable inasmuch as it could give new life to Shakespeare's puns, some of which being largely impenetrable for today's audiences.
EMER MCHUGH
Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance, NUI Galway, Ireland
emer.a.mchugh@gmail.com
What you will? Queering Shakespeare on the Irish stage
My paper takes the Abbey Theatre's (the Irish national theatre) recent production of Twelfth Night as a case-study for demonstrating how Shakespearean performance in Ireland can respond to contemporary political events. I contextualise the production in a recent controversy surrounding homophobia in Ireland - exemplified by the drag artist Panti Bliss' speech given at the Abbey in early 2014 - arguing that Twelfth Night acts as a deliberate intervention into that situation. I show how the production's thematic emphasis of the play's subtitle, 'what you will' raises questions of sexual identity and freedom, ultimately leading us to question the subtitle's validity.
IVONA MISTEROVA
University of West Bohemia, Department of English Language and Literature, Pilsen, Czech Republic
yvonne@kaj.zcu.cz
Macbethian Reminiscences: Macbeth in the Context of Twentieth-century Events
In her work, Shakespeare and the Problem of Adaptation, Margaret Jane Kidnie (2009, 5) considers adaptation 'as an evolving category [that] is closely tied to how the work modifies over time and from one reception space to another.' Undoubtedly, adaptation can be addressed from various points of view, and assigned numerous definitions, e.g., Hutcheon (2006) and Kidnie (2009). Shakespearean drama represents a distinct intergenerational and intercultural medium that considerably shapes the discourse on adaptation. This presentation examines the productions of Macbeth which were staged in Pilsen theatres in the twentieth century. Approached from a chronological perspective, it attempts to trace the reception of particular productions (i.e. in 1903, 1923 1949, 1963, and 2000) in theatre reviews published in the local daily newspapers between the years 1903 and 2000. Based on reader-response theory, it furthermore argues that theatrical performances are rooted in particular spatial and temporal locations and socio-political environments.
YUKIKO MORI
Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Division of Language and Culture Studies argo@cc.tuat.ac.jp Sweets for the Sweet? - Flowers in The Bad Sleep Well
Eco-critical viewpoints shed new light on Shakespeare's use of flowers, an important part of the natural environment. In Shakespeare's plays and adaptations of his plays, flowers often indicate the plays' motifs and themes. This paper will focus on the flowers used in The Bad Sleep Well, Akira Kurosawa's adaptation of Hamlet. By examining the association of flowers with love and vengeance, and with the artificiality of society, I will show how Yoshiko - an Ophelia-like figure who neither dies nor has any physical contact with flowers - is made a victim of the discord between power and femininity.
MĂDĂLINA NICOLAESCU
University of Bucharest, Romania
madalinanicolaescu@gmail,com
The Circulation of 19th Century Shakespeare Adaptations on the Territory of Present-day Romania
The paper discusses the circulation of German and French adaptations of Hamlet in Transylvania and the two Romanian principalities in the 19th century. The paper will consider both institutional (theatrical) aspects of a transnational flow of Shakespeare adaptations in what was regarded as the 'margins' of Europe and textual aspects, referring to translations into Romanian and to local interventions in the 'storyworld' of the play.
