SUBVERTING SHAKESPEARE with Emma Rees

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SUBVERTING SHAKESPEARE with Emma Rees RESIDENTIAL FROM NON-RESIDENTIAL £235 £160 Fri 10th - Sun 12th DISCOUNT FOR CLERGY & STUDENTS MAY In June 1594, Elizabeth I’s personal physician, Roderigo Lopez, was hung, drawn and quartered. Lopez was a Portuguese Jew, and his grisly execution epitomised the atmosphere of zealous anti-Semitism which seems to have characterised Shakespeare’s England. But, in writing The Merchant of Venice, was Shakespeare joining in with the popular anti-Semitic clamour, or was he doing something far more subversive than that? And what does the play mean to us, in the post-Holocaust 21st Century? This will be a weekend of Shakespeare without fear, with just one play – The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597) – to read or watch in advance, and with all other materials provided for you. Emma Rees was Gladstone’s Library’s Political Writer in Residence in 2016. She is professor of literature and gender studies at the University of Chester, and she has taught Shakespeare and Renaissance literature in universities for over 20 years. In May 2018 she led a weekend workshop, ‘Taming Shakespeare’ at Gladstone’s Library, having, a year earlier, finally achieved her goal of seeing every one of Shakespeare’s 37 plays live on stage at least once. PROGRAMME Fri 10th MAY 6pm Welcome to Gladstone’s Library 8pm The Merchant of Venice: A Play of an Age? Or For All Time? Sat 11th MAY 9.30am The Villainy You Teach Me: Otherness and Community 11am Coffee 11.30am The Quality of Mercy: Trial and Error 2pm Performing the Unperformable? 4pm Tea 4.20pm Film: The Merchant of Venice (dir Michael Radford, 2004, 131 mins) 8pm Looking for Shylock: Pacino’s Shakespeare Sun 12th MAY 9.30am Nerissa’s Ring: Shakespeare’s Sticky Ends 11am Coffee 11.30am Shakespeare for the 21st Century DINING: 8AM - 9AM BREAKFAST | 6.30PM DINNER | 12.30PM LUNCH .

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'Otherness' in Shakespeare's Othello and the Merchant Of
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