ESRA Conference Panel: He Do Shakespeare in Different Voices: The Use of Regional Accents and Dialects – Call For Papers

European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA) Conference, Gdansk, 27-30 July, 2017
http://esra2017.eu/

Call for papers: ‘He Do Shakespeare in Different Voices: The Use of Regional Accents and Dialects’
Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University
Domenico Lovascio, University of Genoa

Lisa Hopkins and Domenico Lovascio invite proposals for papers for their seminar ‘He Do Shakespeare in Different Voices: The Use of Regional Accents and Dialects’. Shakespeare has helped shape English and has been translated into many European languages. What happens, though, when he or his contemporaries are performed in dialect or in regional accents? In England, Northern Broadsides deliberately eschew Received Pronunciation in favour of northern accents; in Italy, Cesare Deve Morire used Neapolitan rather than standard Italian. Sometimes particular accents become synonymous with particular meanings or approaches, as with the Royal Shakespeare Company’s rooted conviction that a Scots accent is funny. This seminar is interested in any production, film, or theatre company, in or from any European country, which (to paraphrase Pound’s proposed title for The Waste Land) does Shakespeare or any of his contemporaries in different voices. Possible approaches may include (but are not limited to):

  • use of accent or dialect in a film or stage production of Shakespeare
  • use of accent or dialect in a film or stage production of any of Shakespeare’s contemporaries
  • comparison of approaches to Shakespeare with approaches to one or more of his contemporaries
  • use of a particular accent or dialect across several productions
  • particular companies which specialise in the use of dialect or accent, e.g. Northern Broadsides
  • political implications of the use of accent or dialect
  • is there such a thing as a non-accented production?
  • the relationship between Shakespeare and/or his contemporaries and the history of any particular accent or dialect

Abstracts (250-300 words) and biographies (150 words) by Friday 27 January 2017; papers (8-10 pages, Times New Roman, 12 point font, double spacing, 2.5cm margins) by Friday 26 May 2017. Please send proposals and enquiries to both seminar leaders: