January 6 and 7, 2025 Dayapuram Campus

Call for Papers

Shakespeare is- across time, space and form. He is taught in schools and colleges in the original and in translation; translated in full or in abridged versions; adapted for the stage and the screen, and his tropes inspire and provoke engagements in different critical and creative fields. These manifestations sometimes work along, against and some other times away from each other. It is worthwhile to choose a region, attempt a union of different expressions and identify the intersections to try and evolve a concept about how Shakespeare manifests in the region and how the region negotiates, appropriates and modifies Shakespeares in its historico-cultural givens.

Keralan Shakespeares, a project initiated by Malayali academic volunteers from across India in association with scholars abroad, attempts to map, explore and interrogate Shakespearean lives and afterlives in the Southern most state of India, Kerala- a Malayalam linguistic state within the Indian republic formed merging a part of erstwhile British India and two princely states. The specificities of the state's anti-colonial, anti-feudal struggles till the 1970s and the diaspora middle-class with its global givens formed thereafter- "Kerala model" is a shorthand in economics- have made it a region of remarkable scholarly interest today. The early Malayalam novels that correspond to characters and themes Shakespearean, the translations of the plays dating back to 1866 and stage versions of about a century, teaching history vis-a-vis the shifting historical paradigms and the dozen post-1990s cinematic adaptations need to be read against this. Then it makes a compelling case for a closer scrutiny of this conversation between Kerala and Shakespeare.

Keralan Shakespeares started with a certificate course in Cinematic Shakespeares in 2024 June and the project hosts conversations in histories of fields through 2024. We are most excited to announce an international conference on the 6 and 7th of January, 2025 on Keralan Shakespeares. We are most happy to announce that eminent scholar, Prof. Mark Thornton Burnett (Queen's University, Belfast) will be inaugurating and delivering the keynote address at the conference which will have panel discussions with film makers, theatre directors and teachers of Shakespeare, student papers, staging and screening of Shakespeare adaptations.

The abstracts for papers are invited in the following areas:

1. Cinematic adaptations (auteurs, genres, intertextuality and socio-political concerns)
2. Teaching histories (institutions, teachers and syllabi from colonial, post colonial, theory-based and post global phases of both schools and colleges in English, Malayalam and theatre departments)
3. Translations (Complete translations, abridged versions, inspired works and graphic narratives)
4. Theatre (Commercial, experimental and campus theatre of Kerala and Shakespeare)
5. Popular and Classical performance practices (Kathakali, Kadhaprasangam and other similar forms).
There would also be a student panel in the conference.
Last date for receiving 250 word abstracts: 20 November 2024.
For any queries and updates on this project, please write to us on keralanshakespeares@dayapuram.org