Research
All about our collaborations and research interests
On this page find out more about
Research Partnerships
Research Conversations
Scholarships and Awards
Conferences
Publications
How People Learn
Research Partnerships
Dig for Shakespeare at New Place is now in phase two, led by Birmingham Archaeology. For more information, please go to www.digforshakespeare.com
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is currently collaborating on two research partnerships with The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham.
Peter Hewitt is an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded collaborative doctoral student. As well as generating new knowledge about the collections through object-based research, he is developing a new 'creative cataloguing' system which will share this knowledge with the public and scholars. He is particularly interested in the connections between early modern texts (specifically Shakespeare) and material culture, and the folkloric and 'magical' qualities of the materials that compose objects. This research will part be disseminated through an exhibition, scheduled for summer 2012, and a workshop for museum professionals, historians and material culture specialists.
David Hopes is a Research Fellow focusing on ways to improve digital access to museum, library and archive collections. Of particular interest is how The Shakespeare Institute and S.B.T can work together to build on their respective strengths (teaching expertise, Shakespearian knowledge, and the use of collections). He will also be writing a doctorate thesis on the role of artefacts in virtual environments for learning. David has recently published the findings of a digital access audit of 14 different organisations holding significant Shakespeare collections.
We constantly engage with academic debate and often facilitate public access to these debates through our public lecture programme for instance, in partnership with The British Shakespeare Association, we ran
‘Cardenio’ in Conversation on Saturday 11 June, with R.S.C. director Gregory Doran and Professor Tiffany Stern, University of Oxford. E-mail education1@shakespeare.org.uk for details of similar events.
In partnership with the University of Warwick
We have published several video-posts in celebration of Shakespeare’s Birthday since 2009. Via I-Tunes-U you can find conversations about The Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare (with Stanley Wells), Shakespeare’s Sonnets (with Jonathan Bate, Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells), and ‘Dig for Shakespeare’ on the site of New Place (with Carol Rutter and Paul Edmondson).
For 2011, we have posted ‘Actors’ Shakespeare: Judi Dench, Rory Kinnear, Simon Russell Beale, and Harriet Walter’ (with Paul Edmondson, Paul Prescott, Carol Rutter and Stanley Wells, all of whom have been producing essays for The Routledge Companion to Actors’ Shakespeare on how these actors make Shakespeare work). You can watch this latest post via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FImYpMPPhwc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74pTK8mStec
Scholarships and Awards
The Louis Marder Shakespeare Centre Scholarship
This annual scholarship of £1,000 is awarded to ‘a worthy Shakespearian currently pursuing a Ph.D. or similar study, who pledges to produce an original, publishable article on a previously approved literary, historical, or biographical topic about William Shakespeare (as opposed to character analysis or authorship studies) from The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Library or Archives.’ For more information please contact education1@shakespeare.org.uk. The application process opens in January and closes in April each year. The successful applicant is notified around Shakespeare’s Birthday.
Jubilee Education Fund
This fund, established in celebration of the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II provides modest grants to students wishing to undertake research in The Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive. Please e-mail education1@shakespeare.org.uk for more information.
Conferences
From time to time SBT organises conferences in partnership with other organisations. We also host conferences which we would wish to support. Contact education1@shakespeare.org.uk to add your name to our conference e-circulation list.
Publications
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust includes people who are research active and who from time to time speak at academic conferences around the world.
We welcome review copies of books for our blog www.bloggingshakespeare.com. Fresh articles are posted there around four or five times a week by Paul Edmondson, Nick Walton, Stanley Wells, Elizabeth Woledge and colleagues from our specialist Shakespeare Bookshop. We welcome guest-bloggers from time to time.
Publications from SBT in 2010 include:
- Shakespeare’s Church: A Parish for the World, ed. by Val Horsler, Martin Gorick and Paul Edmondson. A richly illustrated history in celebration of Holy Trinity Church’s 800th anniversary.
- Reviewing Shakespearian Theatre: The State of the Art, ed. by Paul Edmondson, Paul Prescott, and Peter J. Smith, a special issue of the British Shakespeare Association’s journal Shakespeare (Routledge, October 2010). This is an 80,000 word gathering of a conference hosted and co-presented by SBT with the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham Trent in September 2009. It includes contributions from Michael Billington (The Guardian), Peter Holland (University of Notre Dame), Tracey Irish (the R.S.C.), Farah Karim-Cooper (Shakespeare’s Globe), Laurie Maguire (University of Oxford), and Janet Suzman (actor and director).
Edmondson, Paul,
-- ‘Elizabethan Narrative Verse: Marlowe and Shakespeare’, in The Cambridge History of English Poetry, ed. by Michael O’Neill (Cambridge University Press).
-- ‘The Effect of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’, in Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Loves, Layers, Languages, ed. by Sonja Fielitz (Universitatsverlag Winter).
-- (co-authored with Stanley Wells), ‘The Limitations of the First Folio’, in Shakespeare without Boundaries: Essays in Honour of Dieter Mehl, ed by Christa Jansohn, Lena Orlin, and Stanley Wells (University of Delaware Press).
Wells, Stanley,
Shakespeare Sex and Love (Oxford University Press).
‘Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Sex’, in Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Loves, Layers, Languages, ed. by Sonja Fielitz (Universitatsverlag Winter).
How People Learn
We believe that fully to engage with Shakespeare requires multiple kinds of learning styles and techniques. We seek to encourage experts imparting knowledge no less than to engage groups of students in conversation and different kinds of practical workshops. And we are always seeking to innovate our educational offer.
In 2005 we launched The Great Shakespeare Debate (in partnership with the English-Speaking Union). This national competition engages with the set Shakespeare texts studied by A-level students. It combines a team-focussed approach to Shakespearian knowledge with the skills of debating. With the support of The CAPITAL Centre, University of Warwick, we continue successfully to demonstrate that debating Shakespeare enhances students' academic performance. We have since developed a similar project with G.C.S.E. students in partnership with the Sandwell and Dudley Local Authorities. For more information please contact elizabeth.woledge@shakespeare.org.uk