Shakespeare, The Book (RBS-Mellon Symposium)

Date: 30 September 2016
Time: 1:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Location: Special Collections, Coates Library, Trinity University
Presented by: The Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography at Rare Book School and Trinity University

As the apposition in the title hopefully hints, this symposium is committed to the central claim that Shakespeare, as we identify and teach him today, has been fundamentally shaped by the book trade and its customers. Print publishers and retail booksellers have marketed and sold Shakespeare’s writing, printers have undertaken the physical and intellectual labor of transforming manuscripts into print forms that are recognizable as books, and readers have been left after all of this to buy, engage with, and preserve—or ignore and discard—the editions that have been made available to them. Individuals connected to the early theater industry in London appear to have supplied manuscripts to begin this process, as well. So, while it is true that William Shakespeare was the the one who died 400 years ago, “Shakespeare, The Book” hopes instead to mark this anniversary year by directing our attention to agents that have been responsible, from the beginning, for shepherding his name and works into the English canon. It hopes to mark the anniversary by reminding us that, to the extent that Shakespeare has been constituted by the books that bear his name, he has never, in fact, been dead.

Please follow and join the conversation on Twitter at #shaxbook.

See the event website for full schedule and additional details.