May 6 – 12, 2007. Shakespeare and the World of Venice
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Teaching Personnel
Prof. Dr. Tobias Döring - Ludwig maximilians Universitaet
Prof. Dr. Shaul Bassi - Università Cà Foscari di Venezia
Shakespeare and the World of Venice
Aims
Transdisciplinary research and transcultural understanding of two major Shakespeare plays as paradigms of negotiating social categories (such as Jewishness vs. Christianity, Whiteness vs. Blackness, Masculinity vs. Feminity, etc), both in historical and contemporary perspectives.
Prof. Dr. Tobias Döring - Ludwig maximilians Universitaet
Prof. Dr. Shaul Bassi - Università Cà Foscari di Venezia
Shakespeare and the World of Venice
Aims
Transdisciplinary research and transcultural understanding of two major Shakespeare plays as paradigms of negotiating social categories (such as Jewishness vs. Christianity, Whiteness vs. Blackness, Masculinity vs. Feminity, etc), both in historical and contemporary perspectives.
Methods
Group work, research, oral presentations; seminar discussions, on-site explorations, urban field excursions, media analysis and film work.
Group work, research, oral presentations; seminar discussions, on-site explorations, urban field excursions, media analysis and film work.
Description
For playgoers in Shakespeare's England, Venice was not just a familiar place; it was a topos firmly placed in Renaissance thinking and imagination as a city signifying both the powers and the dangers of cultural exchange, economic transformations and imperial trade.
As The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare's troubled comedy, just as Othello, his later tragedy of passion, show, Venice functioned as a stage to perform and explore central notions about self and other, about cultural and religious difference, about outsiders, scapegoats and justice, just as to question notions about love, gender and desire. Through careful analysis of these early modern texts and contexts, the first part of this seminar will reconstruct the historical and cultural framework in which such notions operated in and through the two Shakespearean plays. The second part will then consider, with reference to twentieth- and twenty-first-century examples, how later writers, directors, filmmakers and actors have responded to these plays and have used them to reshape our view of Venice as a cultural platform in the making, and remaking, of identities.
For playgoers in Shakespeare's England, Venice was not just a familiar place; it was a topos firmly placed in Renaissance thinking and imagination as a city signifying both the powers and the dangers of cultural exchange, economic transformations and imperial trade.
As The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare's troubled comedy, just as Othello, his later tragedy of passion, show, Venice functioned as a stage to perform and explore central notions about self and other, about cultural and religious difference, about outsiders, scapegoats and justice, just as to question notions about love, gender and desire. Through careful analysis of these early modern texts and contexts, the first part of this seminar will reconstruct the historical and cultural framework in which such notions operated in and through the two Shakespearean plays. The second part will then consider, with reference to twentieth- and twenty-first-century examples, how later writers, directors, filmmakers and actors have responded to these plays and have used them to reshape our view of Venice as a cultural platform in the making, and remaking, of identities.
Outline
Topics for Part One
- the topography of 16th-century Venice: history, culture, architecture;
- the Jewish experience in Venice; Marlowe, Shakespeare and the Jews;
- Shylock vs. Othello: the money lender and the military hero;
- issues of origin: Shylocks's and Othello's countrymen;
- marriage and miscegenation: Jessica and Desdemona; Paternity, cross-dressing and the law: Portia, Jessica, Desdemona;
- naval exploits, maritime trade: the mediterranean Renaissance;
- turning turk: religion, conversion and the fear of otherness.
Topics for Part One
- the topography of 16th-century Venice: history, culture, architecture;
- the Jewish experience in Venice; Marlowe, Shakespeare and the Jews;
- Shylock vs. Othello: the money lender and the military hero;
- issues of origin: Shylocks's and Othello's countrymen;
- marriage and miscegenation: Jessica and Desdemona; Paternity, cross-dressing and the law: Portia, Jessica, Desdemona;
- naval exploits, maritime trade: the mediterranean Renaissance;
- turning turk: religion, conversion and the fear of otherness.
Topics for Part Two
Shakespeare productions in Venetian theatre today, as well as the rewriting, restaging and appropriation of the plays, e.g. in Miller/ Olivier's (1970) and Redford’s (2004) film versions of The Merchant of Venice, Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant (1976), Caryl Phillip's travelogue The European Tribe (1987) and novel The Nature of Blood (1997), George Tabori's play Ich wollte meine Tochter läge tot zu meinen Füßen und hätte die Juwelen in den Ohren; in Orson Welles' (1952), Burge/Olivier's (1965) and Oliver Parker's film versions of Othello and Janet Suzman's stage adaptation for the Market Theater, Johannesburg (1988).
Shakespeare productions in Venetian theatre today, as well as the rewriting, restaging and appropriation of the plays, e.g. in Miller/ Olivier's (1970) and Redford’s (2004) film versions of The Merchant of Venice, Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant (1976), Caryl Phillip's travelogue The European Tribe (1987) and novel The Nature of Blood (1997), George Tabori's play Ich wollte meine Tochter läge tot zu meinen Füßen und hätte die Juwelen in den Ohren; in Orson Welles' (1952), Burge/Olivier's (1965) and Oliver Parker's film versions of Othello and Janet Suzman's stage adaptation for the Market Theater, Johannesburg (1988).
Contact
Chiara Bianchini - LMU Seminars Coordinator
Chiara Bianchini - LMU Seminars Coordinator
Tel. + 39 041 2719511
Fax. + 39 041 2719510
