BSA Conference
AI and Shakespeare: A British Shakespeare Association Virtual Conference
A virtual BSA conference
26th and 27th February 2026
In the interests of economy and inclusivity, the BSA will be meeting virtually in 2026 over two half days (26 – 27 February 2026, afternoon, GMT). It will be a chance to reflect upon and take stock of the explosive impact of AI on the Shakespeare community, from the perspective of research, performance, and education. The conference will be structured around opportunities and threats, or briefs and griefs. The conference will also include short round tables on AI and editing (with editors of Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quarterly and Adaptation), forthcoming research on Shakespeare and AI, and Shakespeare, AI and pedagogy. The keynote will be given by Jonathan Bate, ‘Love’s Labour’s Won: An Intelligent Artifice?’.
To attend, membership of the BSA is a requirement, otherwise, there are no conference fees.
To join the BSA, please click here.
To register for the conference, please click here.
Past Conferences
2025
The 2025 BSA conference on the theme of ‘Practising Shakespeare: new collaborations, expanding horizons’ took place at the University of York. The conference is organised by Ollie Jones, Tom Cantrell, Mark Love-Smith, Helen Smith, Brian Cummings, Freya Sierhuis, Jane Raisch and Anouska Lester.
An archived version of the conference programme is available here.
2024
The 2024 BSA conference focused on ‘Shakespeare’s Writing Lives’ and commemorated the 20th anniversary of the BSA’s journal, Shakespeare. It was organised by Deborah Cartmell (DMU), Gabriel Egan (DMU), Siobhan Keenan (DMU), Sarah Knight (University of Leicester), Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam), and Pete Smith (Nottingham Trent).
An archived version of the conference schedule is available here.
2023
The 2023 BSA conference took place at the University of Liverpool, and was organised by Dr Esme Miskimmin (University of Liverpool), Dr Katie Knowles (University of Liverpool) and Professor Emerita Elspeth Graham (Liverpool John Moores University), supported by the BSA’s Conference Team.
To read more about the event, please visit: https://www.britishshakespeare.ws/bsa-2023-conference-thank-you/
An archived version of the conference schedule is available here.
Future Conferences
The British Shakespeare Association welcomes applications from institutions to host future British Shakespeare Association conferences. This is the largest regular Shakespeare conference in the United Kingdom, bringing together researchers, teachers and creative practitioners to share the latest work on Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Further details and proposal form are here:
Like all BSA events, BSA conferences are expected to adhere to our Code of Conduct.
Typical session formats at BSA conferences:
- Paper panels (normally consisting of three papers of c.20 minutes in length)
- Seminars, which are led by one or more organisers and centre around a particular theme, invite participants to write short papers that are then pre-circulated within the group. It is customary for seminar leaders to invite their participants to share feedback on one another’s work, in order to facilitate a rich set of conversations and exchanges when the group meets during their session at the conference.
- Workshops are focused more on active or hands-on engagement with a given topic and normally do not require participants to write papers in advance. Some workshop leaders might invite their group to undertake other forms of preparation, such as reading, preparing (for) physical exercises, or watching clips.
- Roundtables, which address a particular topic or theme, normally bring together a group of speakers and take the form of a conversation or series of related short papers followed by dialogue between the speakers.
