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Alumni

A&S Alumni Academy: ‘I will be free…in words’: Shakespeare’s Women and Cancel Culture

April 27, 2023 at 4:00pm5:00pm EDT

Virtual (See event details)

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The works of William Shakespeare have stood the test of time, and they form a cornerstone of our teaching of English literature. While Shakespeare’s treatment of race and gender has long been a subject of discussion among academics, the issue has come into sharp focus recently as part of the so-called “cancel culture” phenomenon. Take, for example, one recent instance in which Shakespeare has become the target of certain cultural critics: renowned British actress Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply; Emma; Bend It Like Beckham, Departure, The Letters), argues that some of his ostensibly offensive plays should “just be buried.” She includes among them the allegedly misogynist The Taming of the Shrew.

But is this criticism justified? On Thursday, April 27, join Professor Dympna Callaghan, University Professor and William L. Safire Professor of Modern Letters in the Department of English, for her take on the question in “I will be free . . . in words”: Shakespeare’s Women and Cancel Culture. Professor Callaghan will discuss not silence as such, but rather about being silenced and especially about two of Shakespeare’s characters, the loquacious Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and that modest yet proficient female rhetorician, Lucrece, in the long poem, The Rape of Lucrece. Why does Shakespeare’s representation of the stifling of women’s speech paradoxically give rise to significant instances of female expression? What about the argument that the social condition of women is so often thematically central to Shakespeare’s works, while women’s opportunities for speech and, conversely, their enforced silence, are especially significant in The Taming of the Shrew? Join Professor Callaghan to give serious consideration to these questions in our own cancel-culture moment.

This event was published on April 18, 2023.


Event Details