Announcing the 45th Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference
Genre and Adaptation
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The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio
October 27-29, 2022
The need to talk about genre in Shakespeare and early modern English literature has never been more pressing. In response to the pandemic, enterprising theatrical companies and other purveyors of Shakespeare’s works have accelerated the growth of new forms of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-based creativity, such as immersive and interactive theater experiences delivered through Zoom. These added to and grew alongside relatively “older” adaptations, re-presentations, and appropriations of Shakespeare in modern genres: graphic novels, television dramas, teen-film comedies, YA novels.
We welcome papers on all topics related to genre, form, adaptation, and appropriation. We encourage proposals that consider how new circumstances, new genres, and new questions give urgency to “old” investigations of genre and deepen our understanding of Shakespeare’s relevance to larger issues that face us at this moment in history. We also encourage papers that consider how new investigations of genre shed new light on the concerns of early modern readers and audiences.
- How do questions of form, mode, and medium influence meaning? What are the limitations and affordances of genre-based analysis
- How do adaptations and appropriations open up new readings of the plays or new ways to access and engage with traditional materials?
- How do new forms and media, new adaptations and appropriations, transform teaching, performing, or consuming Shakespeare’s plays?
We are open to many interpretations of genre and “Shakespeare,” and we welcome papers addressing a wide variety of early modern works. The conference is open to graduate students for regular sessions and to undergraduate students for roundtable seminars. Graduate students and undergraduate students are encouraged to submit papers for the M. Rick Smith Memorial Prize and the Julia R. Lupton Graduate Prize.
Please submit 200-300-word abstracts by September 5 to OVSC2022@gmail.com; the OVSC also offers an Early Decision option with the deadline of July 1.
OVSC Website: https://www.ovshakes.org/
Call for Papers PDF available HERE.
Call for Papers JPG Poster available HERE.