Crossing Borders with Shakespeare since 1945: Central and Eastern European Roots and Routes

The Central European Shakespeare Research Association (CEESRA) is pleased to invite for the Brno Theatralia Conference 2023, to be held on 5 – 7 June 2023 at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

The conference is co-organized by the Department of Theatre Studies, Masaryk University, Czechia, and CEESRA and supported by Visegrad Fund Project “Crossing Borders with Shakespeare since 1945: Central and Eastern European Roots and Routes”. 

Shakespeare is deeply ingrained and valued in all our national cultures, has been central to the academic curriculum, and has served as a lingua franca for our common history and contemporary social experiences. To explore the malleability of the Shakespearean medium as it interacts with the historical connections among the region’s nations, we would like to focus on local appropriations, spin-offs, prequels, re-imaginings, written under communism or after.

A large number of these have traversed borders and have been performed, read, and subsequently adapted in other countries in our region. Making these the focus of the conference would allow us to revise both single-country and English-origins tendencies in Global Shakespeare, to contribute to a theory of cross-media and multilingual translation and transmission of Shakespeare, and to enhance adaptation theory more generally. At the same time, it will showcase individual authors and cultural achievements and thus serve as a cultural ambassador of the region.