Free Symposium Will Launch a Year of Events Honoring J. Thomas Looney’s Discovery That Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford) Was “Shakespeare”
by Bryan H. Wildenthal
On March 4, 2020, the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship will sponsor a symposium (final program here), open to the public (no cost to attend), at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., marking the centennial of J. Thomas Looney’s landmark book, “Shakespeare” Identified in Edward de Vere the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford.
A group of leading scholars will reintroduce JTL and his thesis to the world, 100 years to the day after “Shakespeare” Identified was first published. They will discuss the importance of this book, which continues to be corroborated by newly discovered and analyzed evidence.
Why have some of the greatest minds of our time, from Sigmund Freud to U.S. Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum, been persuaded by the evidence that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the author behind the pseudonym “William Shakespeare”?
Why have so many embraced this Oxfordian hypothesis, including respected scholars and historians like David McCullough; professors of theatre, English, humanities, law, and other fields; judges, attorneys, scientists; some of our finest Shakespearean actors; and thousands of thoughtful people across the globe?
The answers begin with JTL’s revolutionary book published on March 4, 1920. This is the most underreported literary news story of the past century. The centennial symposium will take place at the National Press Club (NPC), 529 14th St. NW, near the White House. It will run from 1:00 to 4:00 pm (doors open at 12:30) in the NPC’s Fourth Estate Room (named for the press and media as one of our great civic institutions).
We welcome journalists, researchers, teachers, students, and everyone — people of all persuasions or none on the authorship question. Free refreshments will be provided, including a centennial “birthday” cake, deli sandwiches, chocolate brownies, and coffee, tea, and infused-water stations. The presentations will be videotaped for later viewing on the SOF website and YouTube channel.
No tickets are required for this free event and there’s no deadline to register, but please RSVP to SOF centennial committee chair Bryan H. Wildenthal (bryanw@gmail.com). Guests who are not already members of the NPC will need a QR code for admission (part of NPC’s standard security protocol) which Bryan can easily provide to you. If you previously RSVP’d, Bryan will contact you again soon to provide the QR code.
Following is a summary of the speakers and their presentations. (Update: For a report on the event after it took place, click here.) The moderator will be award-winning journalist Bob Meyers, past president of the National Press Foundation, reporter at the Washington Post (including on its Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate investigation), editor at the San Diego Union, and director of the Harvard Journalism Fellowship for Advanced Studies in Public Health. Meyers is the author of two books; one was adapted for an acclaimed TV film and the other won the American Medical Writers Association Award for Excellence in Biomedical Writing.
The opening speaker will be James A. Warren, retired U.S. Foreign Service officer and editor of a new scholarly edition of “Shakespeare” Identified. Warren was a diplomat with the Department of State for more than 20 years at eight embassies and served as executive director of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. He will explore how JTL’s insights have revolutionized our understanding of the works of Shakespeare, the Elizabethan theatre and era, and the nature of genius and literary creativity.
Attorney Tom Regnier will focus on why the evidence supporting Oxford — and refuting the traditional claim that businessman and actor William Shakspere of Stratford was the author — has persuaded some of the greatest minds of the last 100 years, including U.S. Supreme Court Justices (like John Paul Stevens) with a lifetime of experience analyzing facts and logical arguments. Regnier practices law in South Florida, earned his J.D. summa cum laude at University of Miami School of Law (where he has taught as an adjunct professor), and his LL.M. at Columbia Law School (where he was a Harlan F. Stone Scholar), and has also taught at Chicago’s John Marshall Law School.
Filmmaker Cheryl Eagan-Donovan will discuss her documentary, Nothing Is Truer Than Truth (view trailer here; available on Amazon Prime and Hulu), and how Oxford’s youthful travels in Europe, especially Italy, and his possible bisexuality, influenced the Shakespearean plays and poems. Eagan-Donovan (M.F.A.) has published several articles on screenwriting and film. Based in Boston, she teaches writing, film, and literature as an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University and Northeastern University.
Author Bonner Miller Cutting (B.F.A., M.Mus.) will explore JTL’s evidence-based “profile” methodology and how it led him to Oxford as the true author. Cutting will also survey key facts explored by later researchers that have corroborated Looney’s deduction, including Queen Elizabeth’s mysteriously generous grant to Oxford of an annuity of 1,000 pounds per year (an extravagant sum at that time).
Professor Roger Stritmatter will bring the symposium to a close, offering his perspective on how Looney’s Oxfordian theory has influenced the field of Shakespeare studies. Recalling his own unique journey from rebel graduate student to marginalized professor, he will survey connections between “Shakespeare” and Oxford’s life as manifested in his personal Geneva Bible (subject of Stritmatter’s historic 2001 Ph.D. thesis). Professor of Humanities and Literature at Coppin State University (Baltimore), Stritmatter has been deeply engaged in Shakespeare studies for three decades, publishing dozens of scholarly articles in leading academic journals. He is co-author (with Lynne Kositsky) of a major book on The Tempest, and (with Alexander Waugh, forthcoming) a massive, new, and comprehensive Shakespeare Allusion Book.
JTL’s critics have largely evaded the difficult challenge of contesting the merits of his logical and fact-based arguments. Most have resorted to ad hominem cheap shots and misleading innuendo. Looney has been taunted because of his Manx surname and falsely smeared as a snob or reactionary.
Yet Looney himself, a modest, unassuming, and beloved family man and schoolteacher, emerges as a determined scholarly detective and brilliantly original thinker. His thoughtful, persuasive, and gracefully written book, already deeply influential, deserves wider recognition as a watershed in literary history.
The centennial is an international phenomenon. The United Kingdom’s De Vere Society will hold a celebration on July 4-5, 2020, at the Literary and Philosophical Society (Lit & Phil) Library in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, where JTL did most of his research.
The centennial will be a major focus of the SOF Annual Conference in Ashland, Oregon, on October 1-4, 2020. (Update: The DVS and SOF in-person events scheduled for July 2020 and October 2020 have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Please check back periodically at the DVS and SOF websites for more news and updates.)
The SOF is promoting a grassroots campaign of celebratory centennial actions. Join the fun! We hope to reach 100 pledges by March 4, 2020. Regional centennial celebrations are planned from Seattle to Florida and Michigan to Texas. Even if you can’t make it to the NPC event, try to attend (or help organize) a local event. Engage in any number of personal centennial actions, which might be as simple as putting a poster on your office door or buying a copy of Looney’s book and sending it to someone you know, explaining why you find it important.
Please bookmark our permanent centennial webpage to stay up-to-date. Again, to RSVP for the free NPC event on March 4 (and get the QR code for admission), and for general questions about the centennial, please contact Bryan H. Wildenthal (bryanw@gmail.com). If you are interested in helping with a local event, or wish to register your pledge to carry out any celebratory centennial action, please send a note to Linda Bullard (lindafern@gmail.com), with your name, location, type of action or event, and planned date.
Please also consider making a financial donation to support the centennial celebration efforts. Thank you for your past and future help!
Additional links related to our distinguished March 4 NPC symposium speakers:
- “Shakespeare” Revealed: The Collected Articles and Published Letters of J. Thomas Looney edited by James A. Warren
- “Did Shakespeare Really Write Shakespeare?” (video) by Tom Regnier
- Necessary Mischief: Exploring the Shakespeare Authorship Question by Bonner Miller Cutting
- “The Poetry of the 17th Earl of Oxford” (video) by Professor Roger Stritmatter
- Early Oxford Poems Echo in Shakespeare (website presentation, also linking to book by Stritmatter)
[published Dec. 9, 2019, updated 2021]
