Shakespearean MEMOs: New Encounters
The Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs) “New Encounters” conference taking place in Cape Town from 11-14 December will include a number of Shakespearean presentations and events.
Medieval and Early Modern Orients (MEMOs) is an AHRC-funded “decolonial project that seeks to further knowledge and understanding of the early interactions between England and the Islamic Worlds”. Since being launched in 2019, MEMOs has aimed “to collaboratively and ethically explore and disseminate . . . traditions, representations, and experiences of encounters between Muslims and their non-Muslim counterparts”. These have long been and remain “a fundamental site of excavation” for scholars “recovering and recentering histories of Islamic civilizations and their shaping influence on knowledge, systems, and technologies that we now associate with the modern world”.
REGISTRATION DETAILS BELOW!
Su Fang Ng
The “New Encounters” conference is a hybrid event, with a programme including panel discussions, lectures, performances, workshops and more. The first day, taking place at the Homecoming Centre, will open with a keynote address by Su Fang Ng (Virginia Tech) titled “Entertaining Asia in Midsummer Night's Dream”.
Following this, Wendy Lennon (ShakeRacePedagogy) will present a paper on “Eco-ShakeRacePedagogy: Invasive Species”; independent scholar Alya Hussain will speak on “Ecophobia, Environmental Toxicity, and the Migrant ‘Other’ in Shakespeare’s Othello and The Tempest”; Nora Galland (University of Bretagne Occidentale) will discuss “Haunting, Memory, and Trauma in Isabella Hammad's Enter Ghost and Shakespeare's Hamlet”; Amelia Ali (Emory University) will explore “Orientalism, Blackness, and the Geography of Shakespeare's Imperial Lovers”; and Murat Öğütcü (Adıyaman University) will reflect on “Shakespeare’s Contemporaries in Ottoman Türkiye”.
Ambereen Dadabhoy (image: Throughlines)
Day two will include a panel on “Epistemic encounters: Shakespeare and Islam”, featuring Safaa Falah Hasan Alsaragna (Istanbul Gelisim University, Karabuk University) on “Ibn Khaldun's Asabiyya and Cyclical History in the Rise and Fall of Powers: The Case in Shakespeare's Macbeth” and Lubaaba Al-Azami (Queen Mary University of London) with Salman Al-Azami (Liverpool Hope University) on “Seeking Sycorax: The Tempest's Islamic Ghosts from Shakespeare to Dhaka Theatre (2012)”.
The day will conclude with a second keynote address by Ambereen Dadabhoy (Harvey Mudd College), author of Shakespeare Through Islamic Worlds (2024), an acclaimed book that “investigates the peculiar absence of Islam and Muslims from Shakespeare’s canon” - a notable erasure, given that “direct engagement with the religion and its people” was common in the plays of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Dadabhoy’s talk is titled, “Turning Turk: The Image of Islam on the Early Modern Stage”.
On Saturday 13th December, the delegates will move to the University of Cape Town. Lauren Bates (Educasions) will run a workshop on Play the Knave, a digital game that encourages teachers and students to engage with Shakespeare’s plays “on their feet” - that is, through performance and fun! There will also be a special panel on adaptations of Othello, featuring Önder Çakırtaş (Bingöl Universit), Aisha Hussain (University of Salford) and chair of the conference committee Hassana Moosa (UCT). In the evening, there will be an ensemble performance of Shakespeare to Gaza (a South African response to the Gaza Monologues) by the UCT Centre for Dance, Theatre and Performance Studies in collaboration with local artists and theatre practitioners, followed by a panel discussion.
Conference events on the final day, Sunday 14th December, will take place at Islamia College. The morning will be dedicated to a “breakfast and brainstorm” workshop on “Teaching Shakespeare with inclusive histories”. This will be followed by a special session on “Muslims in Shakespeare’s Wor(l)ds”, featuring Lubaaba Al-Azami and Ambereen Dadabhoy, moderated by Hassana Moosa. Click on the posters above or visit Eventbrite to register (these events are FREE for all educators based at South African schools, colleges and universities).
The Tsikinya-Chaka Centre is a proud supporter of the MEMOs “New Encounters” conference, along with the University of Cape Town, the National Research Foundation and the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa.
