Research Seminar: Representing the Renaissance in Modern Popular Culture
Shakespeare Association of America, San Diego, CA, April 5-7, 2007

Call for Papers:

Given the proliferation of work on Shakespeare and popular culture in =20=

recent years, we might be surprised to discover that relatively =20
little work has been done either on popular engagements of the =20
Renaissance=97as an imagined historical period, culture, or concept=97or =
=20
popular adaptations of non-Shakespearean Renaissance texts. Rather =20
than focusing on how particular literary texts or characters (Hamlet =20
or Hamlet) are engaged in popular culture, this seminar will =20
encourage participants to think about how the very concept of =20
"Renaissance" is adapted, appropriated, perpetuated, or transformed =20
by modern popular cultural texts of various kinds.

How is sixteenth-century London depicted, for instance, in works as =20
different as Shekhar Kapur=92s Elizabeth, John Madden=92s Shakespeare in =
=20
Love, or the BBC Rowan Atkinson vehicle, Black Adder, and what does a =20=

specific genre or form of media have to do with it? How are largely =20
period-specific concepts such as =93Reformation=94 or =93humanism=94 =20
communicated visually or even musically to modern audiences? In what =20=

ways have popular adaptations of Shakespeare=92s plays=97say, =20
Zefferelli=92s comedies or Welles=92 tragedies=97served to inform or =
infect =20
wider popular ideas about what the Renaissance was actually like? =20
And how have these popular notions about the Renaissance, in turn, =20
affected, limited, or enabled our teaching, and our students=92 =20
learning, about early modern literature and/or history? Studies are =20
invited that address questions such as these, as well as others that =20
consider how =93Renaissance=94 is taken up by film, television, pop =20
music, advertising, popular literature, and the popular visual arts.

Seminar Leader: Greg Col=F3n Semenza, University of Connecticut
Format: Registrants in SAA research seminars are expected to complete
significant work in advance of the meeting: research papers, common
readings, and bibliographic compilation. Seminars are appropriate for
college and university faculty, independent scholars, and graduate
students in the later stages of their doctoral work.

Register for this seminar and become a member of SAA online at:
http://www.shakespeareassociation.org/

Please email inquiries to semenza_at_uconn.edu.

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Received on Fri Aug 04 2006 - 09:25:56 EDT