World Shakespeare Congress 2016 - Call for Submissions

• International Shakespeare Association
• 10th World Shakespeare Congress 2016:
• 31 July to 6 August, 2016 - London and Stratford-upon-Avon

The year 2016 marks four hundred years of popular, artistic, and scholarly enthusiasm for Shakespeare’s life and works. We justly celebrate Shakespeare as a creator of plays and poems, characters and ideas, words and worlds. But so too, in the centuries since the playwright’s death in 1616, have scholars and thinkers, writers, artists, and performers - of all kinds and from around the globe - re-created him. In such perpetual reinventions of Shakespeare we seem to have confirmation of Ben Jonson’s words: Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time”.

The tenth World Shakespeare Congress of the International Shakespeare Association will honour Shakespeare’s 400-year legacy and celebrate the continuing global resonance of his work. The Congress’s rich programme of plenary lectures, seminars, panels, workshops, events, and performances will take place across two successive locations: first in Stratford-upon-Avon, among the key sites of Shakespeare’s personal life; and subsequently in London, close to the site of his most famous workplace, the Globe theatre. WSC 2016 will offer unparalleled opportunities to engage with current Shakespeare performance, criticism, and pedagogy, and to connect with fellow Shakespeareans from around the world.

The Congress organisers welcome proposals for papers, panels, workshops, and other events (including performances and other creative responses) relating to any aspect of Shakespeare’s work, life, and continuing legacy. 

Proposals of 500 words for seminars, panels, and workshops may be submitted to wsc2016@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Workshops and seminars should be co-hosted with at least one other delegate. The Congress is an international event, and, as such, potential co-hosts are strongly encouraged to collaborate with delegates from other countries or geographical regions. Proposers will understand that there will be more space for seminars than panels on the conference programme.

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2014

Those submitting proposals should ensure that their membership of the ISA is current.

Financial donations to the World Shakespeare Congress are greatly appreciated. All such donations will be used to provide grant subsidies for early-career scholars and delegates from countries with less competitive economies. For further information please write to isa@shakespeare.org.uk.

We look forward to welcoming delegates and their families and friends in the summer of 2016.

• Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe
• Royal Shakespeare Company
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
• Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham
• London Shakespeare Centre, King’s College London

• Holy Trinity Church
• King Edward VI Grammar School
• Misfit, inc.