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The 12th Biennial International Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA) will be held at The University of Southern Queensland from October 2-4, 2014. The conference theme will be “Shakespearean Perceptions.” Confirmed keynotes include Professor Peter Holbrook (University of Queensland), Emeritus Professor Helen Ostovich (McMaster), and Professor Garrett Sullivan (Pennsylvania).

Shakespeare’s career coincided with a period during which the nature of perception was being radically reimagined. While the rise of the Elizabethan theatre brought with it new configurations of audiences, Elizabethans were learning to view plays—and indeed their world—with fresh eyes but also with fresh noses, fresh ears, fresh skin, etc. This rethinking of sensory perception also resulted in a new understanding of the roles of reason and the imagination in shaping lived experience. Rather than being a phenomenon limited to the work of Shakespeare alone, the reinvention of perception mapped itself out across the whole of the Elizabethan and Jacobean worlds, and is worth tracing in the work of Shakespeare’s coevals (Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, and many others). By the same token, modern audiences and readers of Shakespearean drama refashion this work according to visual and sensory economies made possible by new technologies and new modes of representation. Topics that may cover this notion of Shakespearean Perceptions may include, but need not be limited to:

  • Shakespearean drama and modes of perception: the senses, passions, embodiment, and medicine;
  • Audiences of Shakespeare in the past and present;
  • Cultural histories of perception and performance;
  • Art and the iconic or emblematic nature of Shakespearean plays;
  • Reinterpretations of Shakespearean drama for the modern stage;
  • Editors and readers of Shakespeare;
  • Modes of cognition and experience in the early modern theatre;
  • Perceptions in Shakespearean drama of classical, medieval, or “New World” ideas and sources;
  • New media and film and adaptations of Shakespeare’s work and that of his contemporaries;
  • Shakespearean drama in translation to non-English-speaking languages;
  • Perceptions of the natural and supernatural worlds;
  • Ways of seeing Shakespeare in political and social contexts.

The conference venue is situated in the picturesque garden city of Toowoomba, located at the edge of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. ANZSA 2014 will be held in conjunction with the 11th annual Shakespeare-in-the-Park Festival. Conference registration will include attendance at the opening show of the main stage performance of Much Ado about Nothing, and for participation in selected other events at the Festival.

The conference will include lectures, papers, workshops, seminars, and performances. We invite proposals for papers or presentations (20 minutes), panels (90 minutes), and workshops (90 minutes) on any aspect of the conference theme, broadly interpreted. Proposals (250 words or less) should be sent by 29 April, 2014 to Associate Professor Laurie Johnson or Dr Darryl Chalk by email: Shakespeare.Symposiums@usq.edu.au