More than 200 people have now registered for the upcoming SOF Shakespeare Authorship Symposium on Friday–Saturday, October 2–3, 2020. And it’s not too late to join the fun! Registration is still increasing daily — already double the typical number for SOF annual conferences.
This live-streamed online symposium (with some recorded segments) will be open to all. Anyone may access it on the SOF YouTube channel. Free advance registration is highly recommended, however, so you may receive more information and perquisites to enrich your viewing experience. The following will be sent to all registrants during the week prior to the symposium:
- The official printable pdf program;
- Detailed background information on the various presentations and speakers;
- Recommended reading list; and
- Invitations to a follow-up Zoom session on Sunday, October 4, in which key speakers will take questions and engage in discussion about their symposium presentations, and to possible additional Zoom discussions on later dates.
In the latest “Don’t Quill the Messenger” podcast episode, available here, Steven Sabel (Symposium Master of Ceremonies) interviews Earl Showerman (Chair, SOF Conference Committee). They discuss the exciting line-up of speakers and related plans. (The symposium schedule is outlined below.)
SOF members and friends will miss deeply the chance to meet and mingle in person as we usually do at our autumn conferences. But the online format turns out to have some compensatory advantages. Never in modern memory have so many people registered to participate in any SOF conference or symposium.
We look forward to many more members and friends joining us — and, we hope, many newcomers interested in the Shakespeare authorship question.
Note that all times stated are Pacific Daylight (the symposium will be live-streamed from our webcast center in Napa, CA), so please adjust +3 hours if you are in the U.S.-Canadian Eastern Time Zone (+2 Central, +1 Mountain, –1 Alaska, –3 Hawaii), or, for example, +8 (U.K. or Ireland), +9 (continental Europe or Africa), +12.5 (India), +15 (eastern China or western Australia), +17 (eastern Australia), or +19 (New Zealand).
Recordings of all three symposium sessions will remain available on the SOF YouTube channel.
Friday, October 2 (Live Session 1, 4:00–6:00 pm)
- Welcome by Master of Ceremonies Steven Sabel, SOF President John Hamill & SOF Trustee Ben August — Celebrating the life of Tom Regnier and the Centennial of J. Thomas Looney’s 1920 book that launched the modern Oxfordian movement
- 4:30 — Earl Showerman, M.D. — “Shakespeare and Politics from the 16th to the 21st Centuries” (recorded)
- 5:40 — Additional live remarks by John Hamill, Steven Sabel & Ben August
Saturday, October 3 (Live Session 2, 9:00 am–12:00 noon)
- Welcome by Steven Sabel, Ben August & Joan Leon
- 9:10 — James A. Warren, editor of centenary edition of “Shakespeare” Identified — “J. Thomas Looney’s Difficult Task” (recorded)
- 9:45 — Mark André Alexander, M.A. — “Stratfordian Blind Spots”
- 10:35 — Cheryl Eagan-Donovan, M.F.A., 2019 Oxfordian of the Year — “Shakespeare Auteur: Creating Authentic Characters for the Screen” (recorded)
- 11:05 — Professor Sky Gilbert, Ph.D. — “Shakespeare Beyond Science: When Poetry Was the World” (recorded)
- 11:25 — Steven Sabel — “The Mentors to Genius”
Saturday, October 3 (Live Session 3, 1:00–5:00 pm)
- Welcome by Ben August & Steven Sabel
- 1:05 — Katherine Chiljan, author of Shakespeare Suppressed — “Lord Prospero in The Tempest and Lord Prospero Visconti”
- 1:50 — Ramon Jiménez, 2018 Oxfordian of the Year and author of Shakespeare’s Apprenticeship — “Ten Eyewitnesses Who Saw Nothing”
- 2:40 — Professor Bryan H. Wildenthal, J.D. — “Early Authorship Doubts: The Oxfordian Connections” (recorded)
- 3:20 — Donald Ostrowski, Ph.D., Lecturer in History at Harvard University’s Extension School — “Toward an Epistemology of Attribution: A Comparison of the Shakespeare and Kurbskii Authorship Controversies” (recorded) — drawn from Dr. Ostrowski’s book Who Wrote That?
- 4:10 — Announcement and screening of 2020 Video Contest Winners by Julie Sandys Bianchi (SOF Trustee & Chair, Video Contest Committee)
- 4:25 — Tom Regnier Memorial Video, and announcement of plans for a new SOF award in his honor (to be conferred starting 2021)
- 4:45 — Announcement of 2020 Oxfordian of the Year Award, and concluding remarks by John Hamill & Steven Sabel
Sunday, October 4 (10:00 am–12:00 noon)
- Live Zoom Q&A session with available symposium faculty, by invitation to symposium registrants only (registrants: with regard to this follow-up session, please await the invitation email, with more information, that you will receive prior to the symposium)
