Flight – Exile – Migration
The Shakespeare Days from 20 to 22 April 2018 in Weimar are dedicated to the highly topical subject of “Flight – Migration – Exile”. The academic lectures will focus on flight, migration and exile in Shakespeare’s plays (for example in the romances), but also on the migration of these dramas themselves, on Shakespeare as a global phenomenon that can be adapted in ever new contexts and media.
Two public lectures will open and close the conference. We will open the conference with a look beyond the boundaries of English studies with a lecture by the Germanist Prof. Dr Anne Fleig, who will analyse the topic of war and migration in its significance for the reception of Shakespeare in German classicism, especially in Schiller’s Wallenstein.
This year’s closing keynote speech will be given by Homi K. Bhabha (Harvard University, USA), a postcolonial thinker who is also well-known beyond the university and who is in many ways relevant to questions of migration, identity and globalisation. He will certainly also include the latest socio-political developments.
In addition, we are organising a panel discussion under the broad title “Migration and Theatre”, which will focus on the intersection of theatre, migration and social transformation, whereby migration is not narrowly defined here, but includes the broad spectrum of different causes and forms of flight and exile. On the one hand, the discussion will question how the German theatre landscape encounters migration and reflects on its various causes; on the other hand, it will address whether and in what form migrants have arrived in German theatre and how they have changed and continue to change these institutions.
The Shakespeare & School Forum is dedicated to the topic of “Flight and exile in animated film adaptations of As You Like It and The Tempest (Workshop)”. Abuse of power motivates flight in both plays, but exile is no paradise. Conflicts over erotic, social and economic interests characterise the relationships between the inhabitants of the host country and the exiles, as well as the relationships among the refugees themselves. Shakespeare nevertheless sketches contrasting forms of exile as a tolerant community in the romantic comedy As You Like It and as a power struggle in the colonial romance The Tempest.
Here you can download the Flyer and Programme as well as the President’s invitation letter.