The Tragedy of Hamlet and the Sistine Madonna
Shakespeare and Possibility continues with the 13th Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare lecture, delivered by Margreta de Grazia, Emerita Rosenberg Professor of the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books on Shakespeare have drawn attention to the belatedness and inadequacy of concepts that have been key to the study of Shakespeare and literature more generally.
Experience the Event
Thursday, March 14, 2024 12:00 pm
Shakespeare and Possibility continues with the 13th Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare lecture, delivered by Margreta de Grazia, Emerita Rosenberg Professor of the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books on Shakespeare have drawn attention to the belatedness (and inadequacy) of concepts that have been key to the study of Shakespeare (and literature more generally). These range from the apparatus of the modern editorial tradition (Shakespeare Verbatim [Oxford, 1991]), to the psychologizing of Hamlet (Hamlet without Hamlet [Cambridge, 2007]), to the chronologizing, periodizing and secularizing of the Shakespeare canon (Four Shakespearean Period Pieces Chicago, 2021]). Her most recent book, Shakespeare without a Life (Oxford, 2023), focuses on our current preoccupation with Shakespeare’s biography, an interest not shared — as her book argues – by the first two centuries of Shakespeare’s readers. She has also co-edited two Cambridge Companions to Shakespeare with Sir Stanley Wells, 2001 and 2010.
The Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture in Honor of Professor Sir Stanley Wells started at the London Global Gateway in 2012. Envisioned as a celebration of a scholar of world renown, it is also a venue for students on the London program and members of the public to meet leading academics and theatre practitioners and hear about their work.
Past guests include eminent academics – Ann Thompson, Lois Potter, Russell Jackson, Michael Dobson, Peter Holland, Carol Rutter. We have had the pleasure of hearing distinguished theatre practitioners, both actors and directors – Judi Dench, Simon Russell Beale, Nicholas Hytner, Dominic Dromgoole, Gregory Doran.
View EventMeet the Speaker: Margreta de Grazia
Margreta de Grazia is the Emerita Sheli Z. and Burton X. Rosenberg Professor of the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in English from Princeton with a specialization in Renaissance literature. Her first book Shakespeare Verbatim (Oxford, 1991) traces the emergence of Shakespeare as a modern author from late eighteenth-century editorial imperatives. Her second book, Hamlet without Hamlet (Cambridge, 2007), awarded both the Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize and the Elizabeth Dietz Award, demonstrates how the modern tradition of psychologizing Hamlet has effaced both the play’s and the protagonist’s preoccupation with land and entitlement. Four Shakespearean Period Pieces (Chicago, 2021) calls for the reappraisal of four key concepts that have served to situate Shakespeare in history: chronology, periodization, secularization, and anachronism. Her most recent book, Shakespeare Without a Life (forthcoming, Oxford, 2022) asks what difference a biography makes to the study of Shakespeare by looking at the two centuries in which his works circulated without one.
She has also co-edited Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture (Cambridge, 1996) with Maureen Quilligan and Peter Stallybrass and both the Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (Cambridge, 2001) and the New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (2010)with Stanley Wells. Her interests at present include Shakespeare as an historical and cultural phenomenon, early modern notions of subjectivity and authorship, the production and ownership of early modern texts, and the chronologizing, periodizing, and secularizing of Shakespeare.
She has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2005 she received the Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching and in 2010, the Provost’s Award for Distinguished Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring.
The History of the Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture
The Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture in Honour of Professor Sir Stanley Wells started at the London Global Gateway in 2012. Envisioned as a celebration of a scholar of world renown, it is also a venue for students on the London program to meet leading academics and theatre practitioners who shape their fields.
Initiated by Professor Gregory Kucich and Shakespeare scholar Boika Sokolova, the lecture series has developed in close collaboration with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon and the Shakespeare Institute (University of Birmingham).
The founding lecture, given by Professor Wells himself, presented a sweeping view of a lifetime dedicated to the study and teaching of Shakespeare, to his versatile interests and contributions to practically all major fields of the subject.
Since then, the London Global Gateway has gathered scholars, theatre professionals and students for exciting engagements with Shakespeare’s multiple afterlives. Distinguished academics: Ann Thompson, Lois Potter, Michael Dobson, Russell Jackson, have shared the challenges and delights of their research. Directors of major theatrical institutions: Sir Nicholas Hytner (National Theatre), Dominic Dromgoole (Shakespeare’s Globe), Gregory Doran (Royal Shakespeare Company), have given memorable talks.
One of the highlights of the rich academic program at the London Global Gateway, the Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture is an important sign of our presence in the intellectual life of London.
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2023
Simon Russell Beale delivers the 12th Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture in conversation with Carol Rutter (Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick): ‘There’s Something in the Writing: Simon Russell Beale Talks Shakespeare’.
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2022
Carol Rutter (Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick) delivered the 11th Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture, ‘Widening the Shakespeare Circle: the Playwright, the Diplomat and the Theatricality of Everyday Life’.
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2021
University of Notre Dame Professor Peter Holland offers the 10th Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture in honour of Professor Sir Stanley Wells with the theme “On the Shakespeare Trail.”
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2020: Sir Stanley Wells in Conversation with Dame Judi Dench
Notre Dame hosts the ninth London Shakespeare lecture, in Honour of Professor Sir Stanley Wells: Sir Stanley Wells in conversation with Dame Judi Dench.
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2019
Russell Jackson (Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts) gives the University of Notre Dame’s eighth Annual London Shakespeare Lecture in Honor of Professor Sir Stanley Wells with the theme “Working with Shakespeare: Stage, Screen, Seminar Room….”
The Annual Notre Dame London Shakespeare Lecture 2018
Michael Dobson (Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham) gives the University of Notre Dame’s seventh Annual London Shakespeare Lecture in Honor of Professor Sir Stanley Wells with the theme “Shakespearean Comedy and the Curse of Realism.”