On the Shakespeare Trail

On the Shakespeare Trail

Trailers are everywhere. No longer only in the movie theatre, they fill our televisions and are all over the web. One major area of Shakespeare marketing that Shakespeare scholarship has almost completely ignored is the film — and now also the theatre — trailer. Peter Holland considers how they conceptualize and lure us into watching on-screen and live versions of Shakespeare's plays.

Rev. James M. Lies, C.S.C.

Senior Director, Academic Initiatives and Partnerships, London Global Gateway

Rev. James M. Lies, C.S.C., ’87 M.A., is the senior director for academic initiatives and partnerships at the University of Notre Dame London Global Gateway. A priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Fr. Lies leads the Gateway’s efforts to advance global scholarship and identify research opportunities in collaboration with campus and Notre Dame’s global network. He provides oversight for Notre Dame’s G.K. Chesterton Collection, recently acquired from the Oxford Oratory, and he teaches in the undergraduate program.

Fr. Jim earned his B.A. from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota; an M.A. from the University of Notre Dame; an M.Div. from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (now affiliated with Santa Clara University); and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Boika Sokolova

Adjunct Associate Professor, London Global Gateway

Boika Sokolova teaches Shakespeare at the University of Notre Dame in England. She has published widely on Shakespeare, his reception in Europe, and performance. Her essays have appeared in Shakespeare Survey, Shakespeare Bulletin, Cahiers Élsabéthains and in a number of collections such as A New Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture (Blackwell, 2007 and 2010), Shakespeare and Genre (Palgrave, 2011), The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Global Appropriation (2020). She is one of the founders of the European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA) and initiated the Annual Notre Dame Shakespeare Lecture in Honor of Professor Sir Stanley Wells at the London Global Gateway. Her latest book, Shakespeare’s Others on the 21st European Stages: The Merchant of Venice and Othello, co-edited with Janice Valls-Russell, is forthcoming in September 2021 (Bloomsbury).

Peter Holland

Professor; McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies; Associate Dean for the Arts

Peter Holland was educated at Cambridge and, when he left in 1997, was Judith E. Wilson Reader in Drama and Theatre in the Faculty of English. He then served as Director of the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon and Professor in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham before coming to Notre Dame in 2002 as the first holder of the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies. For 19 years, he served as editor of Shakespeare Survey, the United Kingdom’s leading academic Shakespeare journal; co-General Editor, with Stanley Wells and Lena Orlin, of Oxford Shakespeare Topics (Oxford University Press, over 30 volumes to date); with Adrian Poole, of the 18-volume series Great Shakespeareans (Bloomsbury Academic, 2009-13); with Farah Karim-Cooper and Stephen Purcell of a monograph series, Shakespeare in the Theatre (Bloomsbury Academic, 15 volumes to date); and, with Zachary Leader and Tiffany Stern, of the Arden Shakespeare 4th series. In 2007, he completed publication of a five-volume series of collections rethinking British theatre history. He is the author of more than 140 articles on a wide range of topics in Shakespeare studies as well as on David Garrick, English pantomime, Chekhov, farce, Peter Brook, and many other aspects of drama and performance. In 2007-08, he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America and is currently Chair of the International Shakespeare Association. Most recently, he received the Sheedy Award at Notre Dame in 2012.

Honored Guest: Professor Sir Stanley Wells

One of the world’s foremost Shakespearians, Professor Sir Stanley Wells CBE, FRSL is a former Life Trustee (1975-2017) and former Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (1991-2011), Emeritus Professor of Shakespeare Studies of the University of Birmingham, and Honorary Emeritus Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, of which he was for many years Vice-Chairman. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, is an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, and of University College, London, and holds honorary doctorates from Furman University, South Carolina, and from the Universities of Munich, Hull, Durham and Warwick, Marburg, and Craiova.

Stanley received a knighthood in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of his services to Shakespeare scholarship. He was elected The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s first Honorary President in June 2011.

View the Event

View the live discussion recorded on April 7, 2021. Register to participate in future events.

Listen to the discussion wherever, whenever, on The ThinkND Podcast:

Watch the trailers mentioned in the talk here:

Read the Recap

Additional Resources

Revisit last year’s event with Professor Sir Stanley Wells and Dame Judi Dench:

Two lifetimes with Shakespeare: Sir Stanley Wells in conversation with Dame Judi Dench

1200x500 Stanley Judi
Dench laughing with Wells onstage

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On the Shakespeare Trail
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