PUBLIC LECTURE: 'Bi-fold Authority': The Electronic Recreation of Shakespeare

Abstract: Is Shakespeare our contemporary, a universal writer who reaches across the years to our own time, or can his works only be understood by an awareness both of the specific political context in which he wrote, and the inevitable instability of the texts he left us? These contrasting, seemingly irreconcilable, points of view both survive today in different communities. Actors and directors of Shakespeare still to a large extent follow the lead of Jan Kott's seminal work of the early sixties, Shakespeare Our Contemporary, and passionately believe that they are re-creating Shakespeare as he would have intended his works to be understood today. Shakespeare scholars, however, are too deeply aware of recent critical discussion of Shakespeare as an "author-function," shaped by each culture into its own mold; and editors especially are profoundly aware of the contingent nature of the text they do their best to tame. In this talk, Best will argue that the Web uniquely allows a medium for publication that allows these two views equal exposure, making Shakespeare at once familiar and strange. In the process, he will discuss some of the challenges facing those who are using the new medium as a medium of scholarly publication.

Biographical note: Michael Best received his PhD at the University of Adelaide. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. He has published books on Renaissance magic and the English housewife in the Renaissance, and two CD ROMs on Shakespeare. His current work is focused on the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE), of which he is Coordinating Editor. The ISE is publishing quality, peer-reviewed editions and performance materials on Shakespeare, making them freely available to a worldwide audience; it is collaborating with Broadview Press in associated print editions of the plays.

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