The Oxford English Dictionary lists three main senses for 'waste' in the English language:

1, Waste or desert land
2, Action or process of wasting
3, Waste matter, refuse

The conference invites abstracts for 20 minute papers which fit under these broad headings.

Papers might consider, but are not limited to, the following areas and questions:

*The early modern association between waste and idleness
*The link between waste (land) and wilderness
*Waste paper
*Economic concerns relating to Shakespeare
*Do waste products of the body suggest a leveling and/or intensification of social hierarchy?
*The relationship between human waste and abjection
*The concept of human waste associated with digestion, purging, emetics, and / or blood-letting
*The concept and processes of 'catharsis' in relation to waste
*Waste in King Lear
*What does the imagery of contamination by human waste (muddy fountains / cisterns, stains, filth) suggest about the relationship between racial and ethnic groups?
*Human waste as the traditional Protestant symbol of money; conversely, money as the denial of feces and its evocation of the human body as pure physicality

Organizers: Johann Gregory, Paul Hamilton, Anne Sophie Refskou, Timo Uotinen, Richard Wilson.

Please submit abstracts and brief CVs, or register as an auditor, by emailing the organizers at kingstonshakespeareintheory@gmail.com before 1 May, 2015 (auditors may register before 15 May)

Please indicate whether you would like to book a ticket for King Lear in your mail.

#####

Kingston Shakespeare Seminar in Theory

ANNOUNCING A NEW SERIES OF SHAKESPEARE EVENTS FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS AND EARLY CAREER SCHOLARS

Kingston Shakespeare Seminar (KiSS), part of the London Graduate School, announces the launch of Kingston Shakespeare Seminar in Theory (KiSSiT): a series of seminars and conferences for postgraduate students and early career scholars with an interest in Shakespeare, philosophy and theory. The program will be committed to thinking through Shakespeare about urgent contemporary issues in dialogue with the work of past and present philosophers – from Aristotle to Žižek.

It is intended that one-day KiSSiT conferences will be held three times a year at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames, which was developed by the great director Sir Peter Hall to be a 'teaching theatre', where actors and academics would work together. KiSSiT events will be free and open to all.

The inaugural KiSSIT conference will take place at the Rose Theatre on Saturday 23 May, 2015, on the theme of SHAKESPEARE AND WASTE (see CFP below). Auditors are also encouraged to attend. Confirmed speakers include Scott Wilson (Kingston University) and Peter Smith (Nottingham Trent University).

Although there is no attendance fee, seating is limited, and registration is necessary: see email contact below.

Reduced-price tickets will be available to all participants for the evening performance at the Rose Theatre of Jonathan Miller's acclaimed production of King Lear, starring Barrie Rutter