In spring 2022 the Shakespeare Institute, thanks to a grant from the British Council in Pakistan, entered into a collaboration with Shaheed Benazir Women's University in Peshawar to develop and explore the enjoyment of Shakespeare among the women of the Khyber-Pashtounkwa region.
That March Henna Karamat, an intrepid university administrator and scholar of Shakespeare's heroines, visited the Institute, conducted interviews with its Asian research students, and met the distinguished Anglo-Pakistani theatre-maker Iqbal Khan (an experienced director with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, who was at the time preparing the opening ceremony for the 2022 Commonwealth Games).
In September 2022 the Institute became a co-founder of The Khyber Pashtounkwa Shakespeare Society (a worthy successor to the Shakespeare Ladies Club, established three centuries earlier back in England), through which the works of Shakespeare are placed at the centre of women's reading and discussion groups, cultural festivals and art competitions.
Further collaborative activities are planned, and the Institute especially welcomes applications from PhD candidates interested in how Shakespeare's women have been understood within Pakistan, the Anglo-Pakistani diaspora, and other Islamic cultures.
