A number of outstanding speakers have been selected to present papers during the Madison Shakespeare Authorship Conference, September 11-14, 2014. Alexander Waugh, Honorary President of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition and co-editor of Shakespeare Beyond Doubt? (2013), will deliver several papers, including the keynote address during the Sunday banquet. Brief Chronicles’ editors Michael Delahoyde will speak on Comedy of Errors and Roger Stritmatter on Palladis Tamia. Professor Don Rubin’s commentary, “Sisyphus and the Globe,” focuses on the response of media in protecting Shakespeare orthodoxy, and University of Minnesota Professor James Norwood will speak on the subject of “Mark Twain and Shake-Speare: Soul Mates.”
Hank Whittemore will discuss the evolution of his “100 Reasons” supporting Oxford’s authorship of the canon, newcomer Julie Bianchi will speak on genealogical considerations of the authorship question, and Bonner Cutting will discourse on the wardship system in England and its effects on Edward de Vere. Ron Hess will review recent documentary discoveries that suggest Oxford used both “Secretary hand” as well as “Italic hand.” James Warren, editor of An Index of Oxfordian Publications, will speak on the use of state power in the context of the Shakespeare authorship attribution, and psychotherapist Heward Wilkinson will address the tradition of “Deceptive Displacements” regarding three key historical figures.
Several papers on Hamlet are scheduled, including Tom Regnier’s on Hamlet and the Law of Homicide, and Ron Halstead’s ‘“What’s Hecuba to Him?’ Connecting Life and Drama in Hamlet.” Shelly Maycock will speak on intertextual connections between the encomium to the First Folio and Shakespeare’s Richard III, Wally Hurst on Sabbioneta and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Earl Showerman on Much Ado about Nothing and Hercules’ labors of love.
The conference will also include addresses by Ramon Jiménez on “Six Characters in Search of an Author,” James McGrath on English metrical verse, and Newton Frohlich on the novelistic choices involved in writing The Shakespeare Mask, a new historical novel on the Earl of Oxford. Hanno Wember of the Neue Shake-speare Gesellschaft will deliver a paper by his colleague Robert Detobel, “‘Idle Hours’ in Historical Context,” which explores the centuries-long tradition behind the practice of sprezzatura, as delineated in The Courtier, in relationship to the Shakespeare attribution.
John Shahan, Chairman of the Shakespeare Authorship Coalition, will give a progress report and the conference will conclude with a panel discussion led by Linda Theil on using mobile technologies to advance the goals of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship.
The program will also include the premier screening of Cheryl Eagan-Donovan’s documentary Nothing Is Truer than Truth, which focuses on Shakespeare’s Italian connections, and a field trip to Spring Green outside of Madison for a Renaissance feast and to see a production of Much Ado about Nothing.
For more information about the conference, and to register to attend, click here.
Be on the lookout for the conference schedule in coming weeks.
posted July 20, 2014
