BSA Conference
BSA 2024 Conference: ‘Shakespeare’s Writing Lives’
De Montfort University, Leicester
Wednesday 26th – Friday 28th June 2024
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The next BSA conference will focus on ‘Shakespeare’s Writing Lives’ and will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the BSA’s journal, Shakespeare.
The conference will be organised by Deborah Cartmell (DMU), Gabriel Egan (DMU), Siobhan Keenan (DMU), Lisa Hopkins (Sheffield Hallam), and Pete Smith (Nottingham Trent).
The organisers will be supported by the BSA’s Conference Team (José Pérez Díez, Maria Shmygol, Coen Heijes, Miranda Fay Thomas, Kat Hipkiss and Andrea Smith).
Overview
Commemorating 20 years of the journal, Shakespeare, this conference will be held where the journal began and will anticipate a diverse range of papers on the topic of Shakespeare’s Writing Lives which includes but is not limited to Shakespeare’s, his company’s and collaborator’s biographies, Shakespeare’s biographers, Shakespeare as biographer (encompassing his representation of historical figures), adaptations of Shakespeare’s characters, the ‘authentic’ Shakespeare and authenticating Shakespeare, candidates for the Dark Lady, playing William Shakespeare, fictional biographies (Hamnet on page and stage), and Shakespeare’s biographical legacies.
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.
Like all BSA events, BSA conferences are expected to adhere to our Code of Conduct.
Past Conferences
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 theatre practitioners to share the latest work on Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Further details and proposal form are here:
