"Shakespeare and the Haunted Spaces of Modernity"

A session to be held at "Space, Haunting, Discourse," an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the
Department of English at Karlstad University, Sweden, June 15-18, 2006.

Session Description:

Shakespeare's plays have been a near constant reference for definitions of modernity. They are also crucial to
conceptions of haunting. How can we articulate these two strands?

Shakespeare's ghosts continue to haunt topographies of the haunted spaces of modernity. From Derrida's
specters and spirits to evocations of the phantasmatic old mole of revolution, reworkings of the supernatural in
modernity continue to return to a set of figures from Shakespeare's plays, especially _Hamlet_. I seek to bring
together new approaches to this ghostly aspect of the Shakespearean contribution to the social imaginary. How
have Shakespeare's ghosts and spirits haunted representations of ideology, politics, and social space? What
kinds of questions have been tied to Shakespeare's ghosts?

The range of possible topics is wide. Reconsiderations of the political and ideological work of the supernatural
in the wake of _Specters of Marx_ are welcome. Still more welcome are contributions that trace the afterlife of
the supernatural in Shakespeare outside more familiar contexts, spaces, or discourses. I would be especially
interested in discussions that show how Shakespeare's ghosts have been linked to modernity in social and
political contexts outside Europe and the U.S.A.

***

Please send abstracts of 250-300 words, for presentations of 15-20 minutes, to the e-mail address below.
Please include contact information. No attachments, please.

For more information on the full conference, please visit the conference homepage:

http://www.kk.kau.se/eng/conf/space/

Martin Harries
Associate Professor of English
Department of English
New York University
19 University Place, 5th Floor
New York NY 10003
USA

Phone: (212) 992-9593
e-mail: martin.harries_at_nyu.edu

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Received on Sun Jul 17 2005 - 16:04:44 EDT