Thomas Dabbs speaks with Fiona Ritchie of McGill University about her forthcoming book on 18th-century theatre entitled Shakespeare in the Theatre: Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble:  Dabbs and Ritchie also discuss the role of women in the theatre and other elements of London and regional theatre during the 'long' 18th century, a period that dates from 1660 to 1830.

Podcast at https://speakingofshakespeare.buzzsprout.com. Thomas Dabbs talks with Lucy Munro, King’s College, London, mainly about her recent book entitled ‘Shakespeare in the Theatre: The King’s Men’. Also Lucy gives her perspectives on London playhouses during Shakespeare’s time and beyond, with a particular focus on Blackfriars. This talk also covers elements of lost culture in Shakespeare’s time and the initiative to produce a lost play based on historical records entitled ‘Keep the Widow...

Thomas Dabbs talks with Mark Thornton Burnett of Queen’s University, Belfast, about Shakespearean adaptations, particularly in film and across the globe.

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University about Greenblatt’s recent work on Shakespeare, the Bible, and Lucretius.

This is a talk with Alec Ryrie, FBA, of Durham University about the relationship between Reformation religion and Shakespeare and Marlowe. In this talk Alec reflects on drama and emotion in Protestantism during the 16th and 17th centuries in England and on purgatory, ghosts, souls, atheism, and church ritual.  Alec is a historian of Protestant  Christianity in general and of religion in early modern England and Scotland in particular. He has written extensively on the English Reformation and...

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Sarah Olive of the University of Bangor about global Shakespearean education and about her work on young adult and children’s fiction (where things Shakespearean make many appearances). Sarah is currently on research leave (2022) and is a visiting professor at Kobe Women’s College in Japan.

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Edward Wilson-Lee of Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. Wilson-Lee is the author of “Shakespeare in Swahililand,” a study of how Shakespearean plays made their way into East Africa. He is also the author of “The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books,” which examines the life of Columbus’s son, Hernando Colón, and Hernando’s dream of a library that held universal knowledge. This work is supplemented with another book on Colón’s catalogue, a collaboration with...

Peggy O’Brien, Director of Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library, about the Folger Method for teaching Shakespeare (see link below). This talk also covers the Folger’s educational offerings online and on-site, including lesson plans and and other offerings for those who teach Shakespeare.  The Folger Method: https://www.folger.edu/the-folger-method Folger Shakespeare Library (homepage): https://www.folger.edu 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:40 - The Folger Method and its origins 00:08:15 -...

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Holger Schott Syme of the University of Toronto about his revisionist understanding of the London theatre during Shakespeare’s time. The talk also covers Holger’s views on acting companies and theatre going in the Elizabethan period, and also his editorial work, specifically on ‘The Spanish Tragedy’. 

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Lena Cowen Orlin about her new book, ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’ and about about other areas of her research, including her findings on Tudor homes and her detailed recovery of quotidian life during Shakespeare’s time.  00:00:00 - Intro 00:03:24 - ‘The Private Life of William Shakespeare’: Overview 00:09:20 - Shakespeare’s education in Stratford: Ovid and Cicero 00:12:40 - Shakespeare’s returns to Stratford from London: Oxford, monuments 00:15:02 -...

Thomas Dabbs speaks with David Sterling Brown of Binghamton University. David is currently an ACLS/Mellon Scholars and Society Fellow in residence with The Racial Imaginary Institute, founded by Claudia Rankine, and in July 2022 he will join the faculty at Trinity College (USA), his undergraduate alma mater. This conversation includes a look at recent initiatives that explore whiteness and modern racial conflict through the performance and study of Shakespeare. It also focuses on such recent...

This is talk with James Shapiro of Columbia University on his recent book, ‘Shakespeare in a Divided America’. This conversation covers highlights of Shapiro’s book on the influence of Shakespeare in American thought and on the minds of such American leaders as John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Cabot Lodge. The book also examines how Shakespeare appears in American history and how Shakespearean material weighs in on such matters as race, immigration, and gender....

Thomas Dabbs speaks with John Wall about the completion of the Virtual St Paul's Cathedral Project. This project is a digital reconstruction of St Pauls Cathedral before Christopher Wren and during the time of John Donne and Shakespeare. It provides architectural and acoustic models for Christian worship in the early decades of the Church of England and also a view of the nave and and bookshops of Paul's Cross Churchyard, where Londoners came to hear the news and to shop. [LINKS] Virtual...

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Sonia Massai about her recent book, 'Shakespeare's Accents', and about her work as an expert in early modern drama editing and in the theatre arts. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:19 - Shakespeare’s Accents 00:09:38 - Mary Hope Baldwin, Studies in Diversity, accent and dialect 00:18:05 - Acoustic diversity 00:20:37 - Wartime Shakespeare 00:34:40 - Textual transmission and reception, Thomas Berger 00:38:50 - ‘Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor’ 00:31:45 - Mentorship in the...

[See SEGMENTS below]. Audio podcast at: https://speakingofshakespeare.buzzsprout.com.  Thomas Dabbs speaks with Emma Smith of Hertford College, Oxford, speaks about her book, 'This is Shakespeare', and her work as a scholar and theatre consultant. 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:20 - Emma’s book: ‘This is Shakespeare’ 00:13:06 - The humanities and public outreach 00:15:34 - Why the humanities? 00:19:35 - Upcoming projects: Nashe, Merry Wives, Books as Portable Magic 00:27:05 - Book history and the...

This a talk by Andy Kesson about bearbaiting in Shakespeare's London. This talk was given to students and scholars primarily in Japan and hosted by the English Literary Society of Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo.

Also available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/SpeakingofShakespeare. [See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Shoichiro Kawai of the University of Tokyo about his role as a director, playwright, translator, and scholar. Professor Kawai directs The Kawai Project, a multi-volume series that has staged productions of 'Much Ado about Nothing,'  'The Comedy of Errors,' and other Shakespearean plays and adaptations. Kawai has also adapted Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' for the...

Also available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/c/SpeakingofShakespeare. [See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Roze Hentschell of Colorado State University about her recent book: 'St Paul's Cathedral Precinct in Early Modern Literature and Culture: Spatial Practices'. LINKS: The Virtual St Pauls Cathedral Project: https://vpcathedral.chass.ncsu.edu. The Virtual Pauls Cross Project: https://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu. SEGMENTS: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:20 - St Paul’s Precinct in the...

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Andy Kesson of the University of Roehampton. Featured in this talk is new research into Bear Baiting and also a shout out to Andy's new program, 'A Bit Lit.' Andy's research covers a host of topics on theatre history and particularly the under-studied but rich period of English drama in the decades before Shakespeare. LINKS: A Bit Lit: https://abitlit.co Box Office Bears: https://boxofficebears.com More Box Office Bears:...

This podcast is also available on YouTube under the search term, 'Speaking of Shakespeare'. This is a conversation with Professor Bryan Reynolds of the University of California, Irvine. In this talk Bryan covers his personal background to show his path from truant student and motocross aficionado to the study of Shakespeare and critical theory at Berkeley and Harvard. Bryan now travels to conflict zones across the globe to direct plays that he composes and even acts in. 

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Tiffany Stern of the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham. The Shakespeare Institute is located in Stratford-upon-Avon and has become a beacon of scholarship in studies of Shakespearean performance and texts. In this talk, Professor Stern's work on Shakespearean performance and documents are discussed along with how Shakespearean drama related to the common person in Elizabethan London and in England during Shakespeare's time. Stern also talks about her...

[See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Jenelle Jenstad about the future of digital humanities, specifically in early modern research. Janelle is General Editor and Director of The Map of Early Modern London (MoEML) and a Coordinating Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE). She is also director of LEMDO (Linked Early Modern Drama Online), a TEI encoding, editing, and anthology-building platform for Early Modern Drama. She is a team member for The Endings Project, which seeks...

This conversation is also available on YouTube under the search term, 'Speaking of Shakespeare.'  Aaron Pratt studied the early modern period with a cadre of fine scholars first at Ohio State University and then at Yale University. He is currently the Carl & Lily Pforzheimer Curator of Early Books & Manuscripts, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin.  Aaron describe the center and its holdings and also discussed his scholarly approaches to evaluating the public...

[See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Heather Knight about theatre during the Shakespearean period. In this discussion, Heather Knight discusses recent archeological finds at the Boar's Head, Whitechapel. This conversation also covers findings that concern The Curtain Theatre, the venue for Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. The Curtain was once thought to be a round shape, but digs and discoveries at this site have proven that it was a much larger theatre and also rectangular. This...

[See SEGMENTS below] Thomas Dabbs speaks with Heidi Craig of Texas A&M University. Heidi Craig is the General Editor of the World Shakespeare Bibliography. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Heidi also works on Shakespeare, early modern drama, book history and bibliography and digital humanities. LINKS: World Shakespeare Bibliography: https://www.worldshakesbib.org Early Modern Dramatic Paratexts: https://paratexts.folger.edu   SEGMENTS: 0:00:00 - Intro 0:02:55- World Shakespeare...