The Department of Studies in Culture invites all to Shakespeare’s Day, a day of celebrations to commemorate a 10-year anniversary of The Faculty of English’s creation at AMU in Poznań.
Dr. Imke Lichterfeld’s lecture: The Effect and Efficiency of Cutting and Conflating. Macbeth 2021 (Friday, 11:30 a.m.), on-site and via MS Teams
Dr Lichterfeld is a Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany. She will look at two recent 2021 adaptations of Shakespeare’s popular tragedy Macbeth – both very different in medium, scope, style, and its representation of the supernatural: the 2021 Joel Coen movie starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, and the theatrical performance at Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus, directed by Evgeny Titov. In her talk she will interpret choices of cutting lines and conflating characters and thereby adapting the play to suit directors’ intentions with a specific focus on the role of the Thane of Ross. The research will focus on the aims behind these choices and dissect in how far the supernatural is as strong a tool as it appears in the play and how the fascination with unknown forces is toyed with in a more intensive and thus eerie way by using images of ravens and spiders respectively.
Dr Katarzyna Burzyńska’s presentation: Pregnant (M)others: The Experience of Pregnancy and Motherhood in Selected Plays by William Shakespeare (Friday, 13:15 p.m.), on-site
Katarzyna Burzyńska, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University. Her research interests include feminist and vegan studies, pregnant embodiment in early modern drama, and philosophical analysis of literature. Her monograph titled Pregnant Bodies from Shakespeare to Ford has recently been published in the Routledge Studies in Literature and Health Humanities series. This lecture as well as the monograph are part of an ongoing research project “Sir, she came in great with child, and longing”: phenomenology of pregnancy in English early modern drama (Measure for Measure, 2.1.96)” funded by the National Science Centre in Poland (No. UMO-2017/27/B/HS2/00089). She is vegan and a passionate advocate for animal liberation.
‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players’: Acting or Close-reading Competition for Students.
For this challenge, students are invited to present a selected extract from Shakespeare’s canon. Students are asked to present their take on a monologue, scene or quotation from Shakespeare. Costumes, make-up and props are most welcome! If you wish to take part or have any questions, do not hesitate to write to Dr Burzyńska (kasia86@amu.edu.pl) and Dr Kizelbach (urszulak@amu.edu.pl).