The ISC: A Student’s Perspective

How boring! But what would you expect from someone who can’t even get it up!!! fuck off back to the states retard

Actually, I can’t read the full blog, I can only see the first 3 lines, am I being very dumb?
Liz

Sure can ^liz

hello all, i thought i'd post a comment or two concerning my paper, which aims, among other things, to get us to think about what we mean by democracy, neo-liberalism/capitalism, and professionalism–and the relationships among them. i am critical of “faux democratization,” which is what i judge most attempts “to democratize” that are made by institutions to be. (this, by the way, is one link to my earlier work, particularly “class, critics, and shakespeare.”) first, claims to democratize made by professors, theater professionals, curators at museums, etc. are made from positions of institutional power; it is assumed, i think, that the institution will always be there. my paper expresses doubt about that assumption. but even if, as i hope, arts institutions and universities aren't eaten alive by the market imperative, it is important, i think, to keep in mind the possibility that embracing market-driven democratization could lead to that end. certainly we've seen more than a bit of nibbling at the edges of our institutions.

second, professor kate mcluskie spoke at the ISC repeatedly of the need to keep in mind the question of scale, when it comes to culture and shakespeare. one might think immediately of the size of the state's subsidy to art in the U.K. compared with the size of its subsidy to the national health. or to defense. one might think, too, of the number of hits to internet web-sites that feature pornography, compared to the number of hits to those that feature blogs about shakespeare. pornographic web-sites are vastly more democratic, no? appeal to vastly more of the demos, no? when we speak of democratizing shakespeare, we are talking about a tiny percentage of the population; might it be as small as the percentage of literate persons in 16th century england? smaller?

before closing, i would like to suggest one example of the kind of claim i take to be faux democratization, and it is close to hand. before i left stratford, i picked up the weekly throwaway paper, which featured an article called, i think, “a bard act to follow.” this paid homage to professor wells, who is retiring from the SBT. the article also noted that “anyone” can apply to be wells's successor. but will “anyone” be selected? no. we all know this. the person selected will be an academic, a theater professional, a museum director, a director of a university, some professional with tons of experience and the ability to fund-raise brilliantly. the person selected certainly won't be an anti-stratfordian and sure won't be an unemployed 20-something, either. to say anyone can apply is faux democratization in my book. it's as faux as claiming that anyone can make a presence, with a blog, on the internet. in my paper, i quote matthew hindman, whose just published “the myth of digital democracy” demolishes many assumptions about the democratizing effects of the web. as he puts it, it may be easy to speak in cyberspace, but it is excruciatingly difficult to be heard. i don't want to rewrite my entire paper, including the bits that, i hope, will be included in its revision, so i will stop here….but i will say that i am not luddite about technology; i use most of the gadgets you use. maybe not as well, but i use them! thank you for your interest in my work and i'm glad that it provoked some discussion. i hope you will read my essay at some point!

Many thanks Elaine for sharing your experience.

Thanks for that anecdote, Garrick. All the best.

Having run one of the earliest Shakespeare blogs for some 5 years now, I wonder whether I'm supposedly one of those “Ill-informed so-and-so's” that is contributing to the problem. I'd like to think not. In fact, I have always gone out of the way to present myself exactly as I am – an ardent fan, a lover of the Bard and his work. At first I thought my site would attract like-minded individuals like myself who simply wanted to share a mutual love of the subject matter. But do you know what happened? Professional Shakespeareans started showing up. Book authors. Actors, directors. A number of people from Folger.

Between us, we discussed numerous major issues – acceptance of Double Falshood as canon. The Cobbe portrait. Death masks. Did we make any pronouncements on the veracity of arguments either way? Nope. Do we claim any particular academic credit, or lack thereof, simply because the conversations took place on a blog? Nope. It's simply a forum where *everybody* can get together and discuss the topic. That's a key difference. I wasn't invited to the ISC, obviously – but Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells can (and do) respond to me on Twitter when I ask questions, and people from the Shakespeare Institute can easily find me, and participate, with a little help from Google.

I'm lost at the thought that this can be construed as a bad thing just because of the medium. Is the academic world not already filled with so-and-so's that want to fight to the death over the claims of one Edward de Vere? Haven't they been doing so, with proper academic credentials and without blogs, for decades? Just because anybody can get a blog doesn't mean anybody will, nor that anybody else is required to pay attention to it.

I started to write a comment, but it got so long I turned it into its own post — so my response is here, at the American Shakespeare Center's education blog: http://tinyurl.com/27noy94. Thanks for bringing this up — I've enjoyed musing on the topic.

I did mean strongly against. I have not read O'Dair's book. That is strange that she would take such an opposing stance from what she did in her recent paper. Anyway, we appreciate your comments, Andrew.

Thanks for your comments. It is important to keep in mind all of what you mention. I think my only concern would be the spread of misinformation. I don’t think any of the academics at the conference want to keep Shakespeare for the elite (at least I hope not!), but I do think they are passionate about letting people respond to Shakespeare in whatever way they would like, while educating them about the expertise that they have gathered over the years.

I really don't understand the concept of keeping Shakespeare for the elite and the academics. Shakespeare wrote for the masses at a time where plays had to command the respect of a very noisy theatre experience.

Equally Shakespeare knew what worked, borrowed stories and made them his own. The language is one aspect of the plays that ios important, but its not everything. I have absolutely no problem with comic book versions, social media plays (like the recent Romeo and Juliet) modern re-writes for TV, soap opears stealing ideas etc, etc.

There are many who would not come into to contact with Shakespeare if it weren't for these reinventions and the introduction is not the end of the story. You have to remember the language can be heavy going. I remember finding Julius Ceasar at the RSC hard going. But there are plays that are more accessible and the rich language is a joy.

Even a facebook page saying “I love Romeo and Juliet” is gaining an awareness. I don't have to like a modern re-write or want to watch Eastenders brutal murder of a Shakepearian idea – its not the aim.

Accessibility is opening up the opportunity to gain something from the text however small. Shakespeare is the source of most fictional novel titles and has spawned millions of stories. Even if you want to keep Shakespeare “pure” it is too late.

Let's remember the view of Shakespeare we have is coloured by the resurgance of an interest in him over the last two centuries long after his death. Let's all remember it is the academic who wants to change what Shakespeare and keep him as a member of the elite. Countless books on how Shakespeare was anyone other than Shakespeare, ignoring the countless descriptions of south Warwickshire that anyone from the area could point out today.

To me Shakespeare is played best when the meaning is fully understood by the actors and the singsong shakespearean delivery is kept only to where it is relevant and where bodyl;anguage is as important as the words. That's not to say that the language is not vital – more that audiences don't have to be in a special club to understand the play and what is going on.

Rather than tell the plebs that they are “wrong” about Shakespeare, we should be finding out what Shakespeare actually means to them.

Thanks for your comments. It is important to keep in mind all of what you mention. I think my only concern would be the spread of misinformation. I don’t think any of the academics at the conference want to keep Shakespeare for the elite (at least I hope not!), but I do think they are passionate about letting people respond to Shakespeare in whatever way they would like, while educating them about the expertise that they have gathered over the years.

Interesting post. You say Sharon O'Dair “came down strongly on the democratisation of Shakespeare” – do you mean strongly for or strongly against? In her book, 'Class, Critics and Shakepeare' O'Dair is a passionate advocate for the democratisation of culture but you seem to be setting her up in opposition to Diana Owen as if pro and anti-blogging equates to pro and anti-democratisation. Is that what you mean or have I misread you?

From my own perspective, I see the internet as a culturally democratising medium just as cheap paperbooks and television were and online access to academic journals and books has transformed academic research. The problem I have found as a teacher is that while students can usually grasp that a published book probably has some status as an academic reference they have to be taught to distinguish between their Google search results and learn that a blog written by a 15 year is not the same as a peer-reviewed academic journal paper!