120 years after the filming of King John by Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1899, which inscribed Shakespeare on celluloid for the first time; thirty years after the release of Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989), which triggered the fin-de-siècle wave of screen adaptations; twenty years after the publication of Kenneth S. Rothwell’s seminal History of Shakespeare on Screen (CUP, 1999) and twenty years after The Centenary Shakespeare on Screen Conference organized by José Ramón Díaz at the University of Málaga in September 1999, which constituted “Shakespeare on Screen” scholars into an international academic community, time has come to gather together again to reflect on the evolutions of both our objects and methods of study.

Argument

120 years after the filming of King John by Herbert Beerbohm Tree in 1899, which inscribed Shakespeare on celluloid for the first time; thirty years after the release of Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V (1989), which triggered the fin-de-siècle wave of screen adaptations; twenty years after the publication of Kenneth S. Rothwell’s seminal History of Shakespeare on Screen (CUP, 1999) and twenty years after The Centenary Shakespeare on Screen Conference organized by José Ramón Díaz at the University of Málaga in September 1999, which constituted “Shakespeare on Screen” scholars into an international academic community, time has come to gather together again to reflect on the evolutions of both our objects and methods of study.

The “Shakespeare on Screen in the Digital Era” International Conference invites scholars worldwide to explore the consequences of the digital revolution on the production, distribution, dissemination and study of Shakespeare on screen. Since the 1999 Málaga conference, the rise (and fall) of the DVD, the digitalization of sounds and images allowing us to experience and store films on our computers, the spreading of easy filming/editing tools, the live broadcasts of theatre performances in cinemas or on the Internet, the development of online video archives and social media, as well as the increasing globalisation of production and distribution (raising the question of technological availability worldwide), have changed the ways Shakespeare is (re)created, consumed, shared and examined. Shakespeare’s screen evanescence and his transfictional and transmediatic spectrality have blurred the boundaries between what Shakespeare is and is not, leading us to question our own position as scholars who keep spotting, constructing and projecting “Shakespeare” in audiovisual productions.

Submission guidelines

We invite  seminar proposals (international pairs or trios of convenors are welcome) and panel proposals (featuring 3 short contributions) exploring the screen afterlives of Shakespeare’s works in the digital era all over the world, revisiting the Shakespearean “classics” as they have been re-released in various formats, examining how the technological and aesthetic issues intersect with questions of gender, class, ethnicity and ethics, and interrogating more theoretically what “is” and “is not” Shakespeare on screen. Seminar proposals (including a 400-word presentation and a short bio for each convenor) and panel proposals (including three 300-word abstracts and three short bios) should be sent

by 30 May 2018

to Sarah Hatchuel (s_hatchuel@hotmail.com) and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (nathalie.vienne-guerrin@univ-montp3.fr)

Dates: Thursday 26, Friday 27, Saturday 28 September 2019

Venue: Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, site Saint Charles (France)

Conference coordinators

• Sarah Hatchuel (GRIC, EA 4314, Université Le Havre Normandie)
• Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (IRCL, UMR5186, CNRS/ Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3)

Advisory board

• Sylvaine Bataille, Université de Rouen Normandie, France; 
• Victoria Bladen, University of Queensland, Australia; 
• Claire Cornillon, Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, RIRRA21, France; 
• Christy Desmet, University of Georgia, USA; 
• José Ramón Díaz, University of Málaga, Spain; 
• Patricia Dorval, IRCL, UMR5186, CNRS/Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, France;
• Sujata Iyengar, University of Georgia, USA; 
• Pierre Kapitaniak, IRCL, UMR5186, CNRS/ Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3, France; 
• Ronan Ludot-Vlasak, Université Lille 3, France

Plenary speakers

• Douglas Lanier, University of New Hampshire; 
• Courtney Lehmann, University of the Pacific; 
• Samuel Crowl, Ohio University; 
• Russell Jackson, University of Birmingham; 
• Judith Buchanan, University of York; 
• Poonam Trivedi, University of Delhi