We are excited to share with the Shakespeare ZA community two brilliant video resources from the recent “Shakespeare Towards An End” conference. The event, co-hosted by the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa and the Tsikinya-Chaka Centre, was held at Spier Wine Farm from 24-27 May.
The keynote speakers were Ruben Espinosa (Arizona State University) and Jyotsna Singh (Michigan State University).
In his talk, “The Way To Dusty Death: Shakespeare and Tomorrow”, Espinosa interrogates how past uses of Shakespeare (all our yesterdays) have aligned him and his work with oppressive structures of power, before pointing to promising futures of Shakespeare through readings that underscore racial and other forms of justice and solidarity.
Singh’s talk, “Lyric Voices, Cultural Translations, and Dialogues across Time and Space: William Shakespeare and Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984)”, discusses Vishal Bhardwaj’s hit film Haider and considers, in particular, its use of the poetry of Faiz; she goes on to explore “lyric thinking”, both in the early modern period and in the present day.