Postgraduate Course: Global Shakespeare across Media: Performance, Cinema, Digital Cultures (ELCC11018)
Course Outline
School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
Summary | This course offers a cross-cultural, cross-media and comparative perspective on Shakespearean adaptations from the second half of the twentieth century to the new millennium. Based on a wide selection of contemporary adaptations across art forms such as films, theatrical and musical performances or video games, this course examines the ways in which these adaptations centre around questions of race, gender, sexuality and class both locally and globally to respond to the socio-cultural pressures of their transnational media landscapes. |
Course description |
As a central constituent of the Western canon, Shakespeare is invested in questions of cultural authority and offers a large repository of texts that creative practitioners appropriate and mobilise to suit their own artistic goals across different languages, cultures, and media forms. Through a series of Shakespearean adaptations, this course addresses the following key questions: How is Shakespeare constructed, reinforced and/or contested by cross-cultural media adaptations? In what ways can the study of transnational exchanges and local appropriations of Shakespeare¿s texts bring new dimensions to our understanding of both intermedial phenomena and Shakespeare¿s place as shared (inter)artistic global icon?
In doing so, this course approaches Shakespeare and Intermediality in relation to the specific medial networks and artistic configurations involved in the adaptation process with an emphasis on the milieu (or social context) in which these adaptations are located, including countries such as India, China, Catalonia, and the United States amongst others. With the contemporary stage as departure point, the course considers a diverse collection of media ¿ cinema, literature, music, architecture, digital cultures and videogames ¿ offering in-depth and comparative explorations of these forms in dialogue with the Shakespearean texts.
Outline Content
Week 1: Introduction: The Shakespeare Myth and Global Shakespeare
Weeks 2-4: Adaptations of one selected play across different media
Weeks 5-7: Adaptations of one selected play across different media
Weeks 8-9: Adaptations of one selected play across different media
Week 10: Revision
Student Learning Experience
The course is taught in ten two-hour seminars over one semester. As the course focusses on student-led learning, students are encouraged to form autonomous learning groups to discuss the primary and secondary sources before class and present the whole group with questions that were raised in their pre-class meetings. Handouts will be provided for each seminar with extracts from critical secondary sources and questions for discussion. Primary texts (that will all be studied in English, either in the original or in translation) will be briefly presented and contextualised by the tutor at the start of each seminar, but most of the class will be centred on workshop-based discussion.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Additional Costs | £7.19 for the Elsinore videogame: https://store.steampowered.com/app/512890/Elsinore/ |
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites | None |
High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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Academic year 2023/24, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 15 |
Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
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Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% coursework
Podcast or video essay analysing a Shakespearean adaptation: 30%
Written essay (3000 words): 70% |
Feedback |
- Written feedback on the podcast or video essay. Students are also invited to an individual feedback session during which the feedback can be discussed in further detail and an essay plan for the final essay can be discussed.
- Written feedback on the final essay |
No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of different adaptations of Shakespeare¿s texts and their underpinning critical discourse
- Analyse Shakespearean adaptations, engaging with their key thematic concerns and formal intermedial features
- Demonstrate a high level of expression in both written and oral (or visual) form
- Carry out personal research under the guidance of the tutor and offer evidence of research initiative
- Construct coherent arguments which demonstrate an awareness of the problems posed by the texts and issues they are studying
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Reading List
Essential
Theatrical Plays
Al-Bassam, Sulayman (2014) The Al-Hamlet Summit. London England: Methuen Drama UK.
Morrison, Toni and Rokia Traoré, Desdemona, 2012.
Shakespeare, William, Complete Works, ed. by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen (Houndmills: Macmillan, 2008), for Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Othello.
West Side Story (Arthur Laurents and Leonard Bernstein, 1957).
Films
Hamlet (dir. Michael Almereyda, 2000)
Otel·lo (dir. Hammudi Al-Rahmoun Font, 2012)
Ram-Leela (dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2013)
Romeo, Juliet and Darkness (dir. Jiri Weiss, 1960)
The Banquet (dir. Feng Xiaogang, 2006).
Music
Ellington, Duke. Such Sweet Thunder, 1957.
Videogame
Elsinore, Golden Glitch Studios, 2019.
Recommended Reading
Aebischer, Pascale. (2009) Shakespeare's Violated Bodies: Stage and Screen Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aebischer, Pascale. (2020) Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bulman, James C. (2020) The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burnett, Mark Thornton (2015) Shakespeare and World Cinema. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Calbi, Maurizio (2016) Spectral Shakespeares: Media Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cartelli, Thomas (2019) Reenacting Shakespeare in the Shakespeare Aftermath: The Intermedial Turn and Turn to Embodiment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Desmet, Christy Sujata Iyengar, and Miriam Emma Jacobson, eds. (2019) The Routledge Handbook of Shakespeare and Global Appropriation. New York: Routledge.
Dionne, C. and Kapadia, P. (2014) Bollywood Shakespeares. Cham: Springer.
Joubin, Alexa Alice (2021).¿Shakespeare And East Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fischlin , Daniel (2018). OuterSpeares: Shakespeare, Intermedia, and the Limits of Adaptation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hansen, Adam (2021) Shakespeare in the North: Place, Politics and Performance in England and Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hatchuel, Sarah and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin. (2011). Shakespeare on Screen: Hamlet. Mont-Saint-Aignan: Universite¿s de Rouen et du Havre.
Hatchuel, Sarah and Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin (2015). Shakespeare on Screen: Othello. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hennessey, Katherine (2018) Shakespeare on the Arabian Peninsula. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Holderness, Graham (1988). The Shakespeare Myth, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lanier, Douglas (2012). Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Levenson, Jill L., and Robert Ormsby (2017). The Shakespearean World. New York: Routledge.
Lehmann, Courtney (2010). Shakespeare¿s Romeo and Juliet: a Close Study of the Relationship Between Text and Film. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.
MacDonald, Joyce Green (2020) Shakespearean Adaptation, Race and Memory in the New World. 1st ed. 2020. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Mancewicz, Aneta (2014) Intermedial Shakespeares on European Stages. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mancewicz, Aneta and Alexa Alice Joubin, eds (2018) Local and Global Myths in Shakespearean Performance. Cham: Springer International Publishing
O'Neill, Stephen, ed. (2020) Broadcast your Shakespeare: Continuity and Change across Media. London: Bloomsbury.
Plastow, Jane, and Martin Banham, eds. (2013). Shakespeare in & out of Africa. Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey.
Taylor, Gary. (1991) Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration, London: Vintage.
Further Reading
Burnett, Mark T. (2019) ¿Hamlet¿ and World Cinema. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Callaghan, D. (1998) ¿Forum: Race and the Study of Shakespeare: What¿s at Stake in Representing Race?¿ Shakespeare Studies, 26, pp. 21¿26.
Cartelli, Tom (1999) Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations. London: Routledge.
Drakakis, John, ed. (1985). Alternative Shakespeares, London: Routledge.
Drouin, Jennifer ed. (2020) Shakespeare / Sex: Contemporary Readings in Gender and Sexuality. London; New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
Eklund, Hillary, and Wendy Beth Hyman editor (2020) Teaching Social Justice through Shakespeare: Why Renaissance Literature Matters Now. Oxford: University Press.
Espinosa, R. (2016) ¿Diversifying Shakespeare¿, Literature Compass, 13(2), pp. 58¿68.
Hawkes, Terence, ed. (1996). Alternative Shakespeares: Volume 2, London: Routledge.
Hawkes, Terence. (2017) Meaning by Shakespeare, London: Routledge.
Heijes, C. and Thompson, A. (2020) ¿Introduction: Shakespeare, Blackface and Performance. A Global Perspective¿, Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance, 22(37), pp. 9¿14.
Henderson, Diana (2018) Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare across Time and Media. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Henderson, Diana, ed. (2007). Alternative Shakespeares: Volume 3, London: Routledge.
Hodgdon, Barbara (1998). The Shakespeare Trade: Performances and Appropriations. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Holl, Jennifer. 2021. Shakespeare and Celebrity Cultures. New York: Routledge.
Kingsley-Smith, J. (2003) Shakespeare¿s Drama of Exile. Palgrave Macmillan UK
Lehmann, Courtney, and Lisa S. Starks-Estes (2002). Spectacular Shakespeare: Critical Theory and Popular Cinema. Madison [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
Loomba, Ania. (2003) Post-Colonial Shakespeares. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Mallin, Eric (2019) Reading Shakespeare in the Movies Non-Adaptations and Their Meaning. 1st ed. 2019. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Massai, Sonia (2020) Shakespeare¿s Accents: Voicing Identity in Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maxwell, Julie and Kate Louise Rumbold, eds (2018) Shakespeare and Quotation. Cambridge: University Press.
Pope, Jonathan (2020) Shakespeare¿s Fans Adapting the Bard in the Age of Media Fandom. 1st ed. 2020. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Stanivukovic, Goran V. (2020) Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality. London, England: Bloomsbury.
Thompson, A. (2006) Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance. New York: Routledge.
Thompson, A. (2011) Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Traub, Valerie, ed. (2016) The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment: Gender, Sexuality, and Race. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wynants, Nele, ed (2019) ed. Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. |
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Students will develop graduate skills in all four clusters of ability:
Research and inquiry
Personal and intellectual autonomy
Communication
Personal effectiveness
In particular, students will be:
Able to exercise critical judgement in creating new understanding; be ready to ask key questions and the limitations of their own knowledge and recognise the need to regularly challenge all knowledge; search for, evaluate and use information to develop their knowledge and understanding; recognise the importance of reflecting on their learning experiences and be aware of their own learning style.
Be open to new ideas, methods and ways of thinking; be creative and imaginative thinkers; be independent learners; be able to make decisions; be intellectually curious.
Make effective use of oral, written and visual means to critique, negotiate, create and communicate understanding; seek and value open feedback to inform genuine self-awareness
Have the confidence to make decisions based on their understandings and their personal and intellectual autonomy; be able to work effectively with others. |
Keywords | comparative,adaptation,performance,remediation,Global Shakespeare,intersectionality |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr Inma Sanchez-Garcia
Tel:
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Gillian Paterson
Tel: (0131 6)50 3646
Email: |
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