Annual Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference

Announcing the 17th Annual Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference

Date: Saturday, April 28, 2018
Host: Fitchburg State University

Theme:  Shakespeare For “All Time”

Plenary Speaker: Helen Whall, Professor Emerita, Holy Cross

This year’s conference takes as its theme Shakespeare through the ages. Time and culture have always influenced interpretations of Shakespeare’s works, their forms, performance, presentation, educational and cultural use.

We welcome undergraduate submissions of 300-word proposals for 15 -minute conference papers on topics including but not limited to:
o Shakespearean Adaptations on Film or Stage
o Sc-Fi Shakespeare o Ecological Shakespeare
o Shakespeare Sequels and Rewritings
o Queer Shakespeare
o Hypertext Shakespeare
o Classical Shakespeare
o Shakespeare Before Shakespeare
o Shakespeare Mashups
o Teaching Shakespeare
o Shakespeare in Other Times, Cultures, and Art Forms

Deadline for 300-word proposals to be submitted online:  March 28, 2018. A $20.00 conference fee covers registration and lunch.

Please contact Prof. Lisa Gim: lgim@fitchburgstate.edu for more information.

Conference history

In 2001, Professor Virginia Vaughan called together her colleagues from Worcester’s Consortium Colleges to discuss the possibility of organizing an undergraduate Shakespeare conference that would be open to students from all the colleges in the area. The goal was to offer undergraduate students a pre-professional experience that would showcase the important research they were doing in their Shakespeare classes. The Committee also hoped students would find the experience of delivering a paper about their own work and meeting other students with similar interests to be empowering. The Committee picked a theme, identified a guest speaker for a plenary luncheon, and solicited proposals. Students were notified, and on April 12, 2002, the first Undergraduate Shakespeare Conference was held at Clark University.

Conferences have been held annually since then, and the number of proposals has grown so that the Steering Committee can be more selective. Now that the conference announcement is posted on the Web, we receive proposals from schools as far away as Kentucky, Ohio, and Ontario.

Previous conferences

2013	2012—News release	2011—News release
2010	2009	2008