Call for Papers
Education is a ‘drawing out’ – of knowledge, experience, of the learner and of the teacher. Situations, narratives and interrogations of teaching and learning occur frequently in Shakespeare’s plays and many other texts of the period. The problems of teaching 400-year-old texts, under different societal, technological, cultural, and even geographical constraints, remain challenging today.

The conference will have a dual focus, covering Shakespearean pedagogy in its widest sense, then and now. Papers might consider ways of engaging students with Shakespearean and other Early Modern drama, the educational uses of reconstructions such as the London Globe, the effects and effectiveness of Shakespeare on film, the uses of ‘Shakespeare’ in other modes of teaching and learning, in the past as well as the present. Equally, they might explore the many ideas about learning and teaching in the Early Modern period, scenes and narratives of pedagogy in Shakespearean and other theatres – including the writer ‘instructing’ his actors via the processes of rehearsal and enskillment. Theoretical issues, for example those arising from gender, class and ideas of childhood, invite development in these contexts. 

Proposals for theme-based panels and workshops focusing on ways of exploring Shakespeare are welcome, as well as individual short papers. Papers on the teaching and learning of Shakespeare in schools are especially welcome. Proposals for 20-minute papers should be submitted for consideration by the programme panel by 24 March 2010.

Registration is via the ANZSA website, and is now open. Early registration fees (including postgraduate student concessions) are payable until 31 March 2010.

Plenaries
Lynn Enterline, Professor of English, Vanderbilt University, will speak on ‘Rhetoric, Violence, and Emotion in Shakespeare's Schoolroom’, from her forthcoming book, Shakespeare’s Schoolroom: Rhetoric, Discipline, and Emotion. Prof. Enterline’s publications include The Tears of Narcissus: Melancholia and Masculinity in Early Modern Writing and The Rhetoric of the Body from Ovid to Shakespeare.

Gordon McMullan, Professor of English, King’s College London, will speak on ten years of the MA in Shakespeare Studies, a unique collaboration with London’s Shakespeare’s Globe theatre. Prof. McMullan’s recent books include Shakespeare and the Idea of Late Writing: Authorship in the Proximity of Death, and Reading the Medieval in Early Modern England (co-edited with David Matthews).

Evelyn Tribble, Professor of English, University of Otago, will speak on her current research on the distributed cognitive properties of workplace settings in the Early Modern theatre; her talk examines the variety of strategies used within the plays for employing and enskilling boys. Prof. Tribble’s publications include Margins and Marginality: The Printed Page in Early Modern England, and Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age (with Anne Trubek).

Venue
The conference will take place on the main campus of the University of Sydney, with a proposed half-day at Barker College focusing on Shakespeare in schools. Accommodation options will be listed on the website when registration opens.

Sponsors
The School of Letters, Art and Media, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney.
The Australian Research Council and Barker College.
The conference is an outcome of funded project ‘Shakespeare Reloaded’, a Linkage Grant between the University of Sydney and Barker College, Hornsby, Sydney.