Culture Talk by David Livingstone

The English Department is proud to invite you to

a public lecture followed by a sing-along session with the banjo

by

David Livingstone, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Head of the Literary Section of the Department of English and American Studies
Palacký University, Olomouc

Shakespeare('s) Lives: Adaptations of the Bard in Contemporary Literature

April 19, 2023, 6.00 pm, P005

Like Hamlet’s father’s ghost, Shakespeare is still very much around today, but not always in forms we might expect. This talk will primarily explore Shakespearian themed books from the last fifty years. This will cover not only novels which are contemporary adaptations of the plays (especially novels in the so-called Hogarth Shakespeare Series), but also books dealing with Shakespeare the historical person. There will also be references to the development of this tradition as well as a brief discussion of the film adaptations and TV series (Shakespeare in Love, Upstart Crow).

David Livingstone is an American who has been living and working in the Czech Republic for more than thirty years. He teaches Shakespeare, modernism, Czech culture, children’s literature and American folk music at Palacký University, Olomouc. His doctoral dissertation, entitled Subversive Characters and Techniques in Shakespeare's History Plays, attempted feminist and cultural materialist readings of the first Henriad in particular. He has recently published a book, In Our Own Image: Fictional Representations of William Shakespeare, which looks at the wealth of novels, plays, short stories, films, television series and even comics focused on Shakespeare as a character.