Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare’s Language | National Humanities Center

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Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare’s Language

April 23, 2020

Due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions affecting our speakers and in an abundance of caution for our guests, “Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare’s Language” panel discussion on April 23 has been canceled. Like so many of you, we were eagerly anticipating the conversation with scholars Elizabeth Barnes, Erin Minear, Erin Webster, and Sarah Beckwith and regret that we will be unable to have them with us at this time.

April 23, 2020 at 4:00pm at the National Humanities Center

Paula Blank (1959–2016) was an accomplished Shakespearean scholar, English professor at The College of William & Mary, and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in 2001–02 and 2012–13. During her second fellowship, Blank worked on a project entitled “Shakespeare and Modern English.” When she passed away suddenly in 2016, three members of the English Department at William & Mary—Elizabeth Barnes, Erin Minear, and Erin Webster—honored their friend and colleague’s memory by ushering her unfinished manuscript through publication.

Shakesplish: How We Read Shakespeare’s Language by Paula Blank, was published by Stanford University Press in 2018. On April 23, 2020 (Shakespeare’s 456th birthday), Elizabeth Barnes, Erin Minear, and Erin Webster will remember their friend and talk about what it was like to bring her work to publication.

Paula Blank, Shakesplish book cover

  • Elizabeth Barnes

    Elizabeth Barnes

    Professor of English and American Studies, The College of William & Mary

  • Erin Minear

    Erin Minear

    Associate Professor of English, The College of William & Mary

  • Erin Webster

    Erin Webster

    Assistant Professor of English, The College of William & Mary

  • Sarah Beckwith

    Sarah Beckwith

    Moderator
    Katherine Everett Gilbert Distinguished Professor of English, Duke University