Thomas Dabbs speaks with Darren Freebury-Jones about his recent book, Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers: How Early Modern Playwrights Shaped the World’s Greatest Writer. This is Darren’s second appearance on the series. Early he has spoken about two more recent books, the first entitled ‘Reading Robert Green: Recovering Shakespeare’s Rival’ and the second is entitled ’Shakespeare’s Rival: The Influence of Thomas Kyd.’ The talk is at: https://youtu.be/tX59cYTUCgE?si=cs2Ac3d8w5-Eqeyg

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:54 - ‘Shakespeare’s Borrowed Feathers’

00;04:20 - Digital attribution and reckoning

00:08:31 - The ethics of borrowing

00:16:08 - Shakespeare as solitary genius?

00:18:10 - Collaboration in Shakespeare’s time

00:22:02 - Shakespeare’s with contemporaries

00:36:26 - Ben Jonson

00:39:26 - Memory, the skill of remembering

00:43:57 - How is Shakespeare different from other playwrights?

00:51:26 - Darren’s current and future work

00:59:20 - The public face of an editor

This is a talk with Tanya Pollard of Brooklyn College, City University of New York about Ben Jonson and about her other work on women in Shakespeare and early modern drama.

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:34 - Ben Jonson’s ‘The Alchemist’.

00:15:12 - Greek tragic women, drama, research methods

00:40:15 - Work with theaters in New York City

00:52:27 - What brought Tanya to NYC, CUNY

00:57:27 - Tanya’s aerial work, the silks

01:08:17 - Closing remarks

Video broadcast here or at https://youtu.be/uVmVZxW2Pu8
Thomas Dabbs speaks with Agnès Lafont of Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 and Lindsay Reid of the University of Galway about their research and recent collaborations in early modern editing and performance. Lots of Ovid, for Ovid lovers:

[LINKS]
- The Edward’s Boys, 'The Maydes Metamorphosis':Trailer, 2024 © Esme Cornish
King Edward VI School (KES), Stratford-upon-Avon
https://nakala.fr/10.34847/nkl.935bd7zg
- Edward's Boys at https://www.edwardsboys.org.uk
- Artists in residency, IRCL: https://ircl.cnrs.fr/en/recherche/residences-dartistes-en-laboratoire-scientifique/
- "The Maid's Metamorphosis or The Metamorphoses of the Maid?": https://researchrepository.universityofgalway.ie/entities/publication/e20d661b-fae7-44f3-b062-38d0b2a2094c

[SEGMENTS]
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:35 - ‘The Maydes Metamorphosis’ and Ovid
00:21:27 - Summer School in Sardinia: ‘The Tempest’
00:28:53 - Ovid in the air, cross-cultural influences
00:47:04 - Remediating the Early Book: Past and Futures
00:50:34 - Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain
00:53:34 - Scholar adventurers, outreach, beautiful places

Video broadcast at https://youtu.be/UO-SQwmu82Q. This is a talk with David Kastan of Yale University about his career and about what Shakespeare has to do with art and color. It features his forthcoming book on Shakespeare and Rembrandt.

00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:42 - Accident, chance, adventure, and scholarship
00:12:45 - Shakespeare and Rembrandt
00:31:25 - Art that makes you stop
00:44:37 - What is beauty in art and poetry? Paying attention
00:56:35 - Shakespeare and religion, translations
01:08:32 - On Color
01:20:15 - Closing: The prospect of beauty

Thomas Dabbs again speaks with James Shapiro of Columbia University, this time about his recent book entitled: ‘The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War.’

[SEGMENTS]

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:20 - ‘The Playbook’ and Shakespeare in America

00:04:17 - The Federal Theater (1935-39)

00:07:22 - Hallie Flanagan and the Federal Theater

00:13:02 - Martin Dies and the conservative playbook

00:18:50 - The American culture war

00:20:05 - Beginnings of the Federal Theater

00:23:50 - A lost and found research archive

00:25:10 - Is Christopher Marlowe a communist?

00:31:35 - Race and Macbeth

00:36:50 - Criticism from the left of the left

00:39:25 - The death of innovation, the playbook redux

00:47:40 - The life of Othello in America

This is a public lecture by Christopher Highley of the Ohio State University on his book, 'Blackfriars in Early Modern London' (Oxford UP, 2022). Highley specializes in Early Modern literature, culture, and history. Along with his many publications, honors, grants, and awards, he is the author of Shakespeare, Spenser, and the Crisis in Ireland (Cambridge UP, 1997), Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford UP, 2008). His well-received and most recent book is entitled Blackfriars in Early Modern London: Theater, Church, and Neighborhood. He is currently continuing his work on early modern London during the English Reformation period, as well as on the posthumous image of Henry VIII.

Video version at: https://youtu.be/I_kDph02QcI?si=Z2jXDMPwrm3XQi0h. Stephen Wittek speaks at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, on his book, 'The Cultural Politics of Conversion in Early Modern England' on Tuesday, June 6th, 2023. Wittek’s work lies at the intersection between early modern drama, cultural studies, and digital humanities. His most recent book is a close examination of Shakespeare’s engagement with the flurry of controversy and activity surrounding the concept of conversion in post-Reformation England. He is also the author of 'The MediaPlayers: Shakespeare, Middleton, Jonson, and the Idea of News' and co-editor of two collections: 'Performing Conversion: Cities, Theatre and Early Modern Transformations' and 'Shakespeare and Virtual Reality'.

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Diana Henderson of MIT about her recent work in Shakespearean pedagogy and Shakespearean adaptation in particular, but also about her influential contributions to literary study during her career as a Shakespeare scholar.

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:18 - Balliol College sabbatical, current research

00:06:12 - Why humanities, arts, and social science at MIT

00:12:50 - Shakespeare and digital pedagogy

00:22:33 - Shakespeare and adaptation

00:40:09 - Shakespeare in film, Shakespeare/Sense

00:48:21 - Preserving theatre with recordings and records

00:58:30 - Diana’s work as a dramaturg

01:03:10 - Passions Made Public/ made feminism in academia

01:11:11 - Genealogies of literary criticism

01:14:33 - Closing remarks