Shakespeare Oxford Society — Online NewsProf Daniel Wright, Ph.D announced the date and topic of the 2010 eleventh annual Shakespeare Authorship Studies Seminar at Concordia University in the new Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre. Mark your calendars now for August 15 – 20, 2010.
The seminar topic will be “Did He or Didn’t He? Shakespeare’s Apocrypha: Arden of Faversham, Edmund Ironside, Locrine, Fair Em, Cardenio, Etc”
Wright said participants can register early at: http://www.authorshipstudies.org
Waiting for William: After four centuries, we may finally be seeing history’s greatest writer for the first time
By Sally Jenkins Washington Post, August 30, 2009
(with slideshow) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101928.html?sid=ST2009082703697
Writer Sally Jenkins will be taking questions about this Cobbe portrait story on Monday, August 31 at 12 noon.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/08/27/DI2009082703390.html
Go here: http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/content/submit_postmag.htm to submit comments or questions BEFORE or DURING the discussion.
The De Vere Society will hold its Autumn Meeting October 3, 2009 in the Darwin Room, Hamilton Centre, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex, England. The program begins at 10 a.m. with Kevin Gilvary on editing the society’s Dating Project, lunch and Eddi Jolly on “Dating The Winter’s Tale”, 3 p.m. book sale and Patrick O’Brien on “Shakespeare and Cambridge”, 3:30 p.m. tea and Elizabeth Imlay on “DVS publications”, and John Rollett on “Doubts about De Vere” ending at 5 p.m. The cost is £ 20. Make checks out to the De Vere Society and mail to Kevin Gilvary, DVS Events Secretary, 6 Rosedale Close, Titchfield, Fareham, PO14 4EL, UK, tel 01329 842689, e-mail: kevingilvary@btinternet.com.
Marty Hyatt reported that Columbia professor James Shapiro will be promoting his new book about the Shakespeare authorship controversy next spring. The title is Contested Will. At least 2 talks are already scheduled.
Contested Will
Simon & Schuster, April 2010
Hardcover, 384 pages
ISBN-10: 1-4165-4162-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4162-2
April 16, 2010 – Friday at 7:30pm
Folger Lectures
Tickets: TBA
Folger Library
Washington, DC
May 2, 2010 – Sunday at 11:00am
Books and Bagels Series
Tickets: $35 (some $10 tickets set aside for 35 and younger)
92nd Street Y
New York, NY
Shakespeare Fellowship/Shakespeare-Oxford Society Joint Conference Chairperson Bonner Miller Cutting sent this invitation to the Houston shindig:
Bring your cowboy hats and plan to enjoy some great Texas Barbeque at the joint SOS/SF conference this November 5-8, 2009 at the Intercontinental Airport Doubletree Hotel in Houston, TX. Plans are shaping up for a memorable occasion!
With speakers including Richard Whalen, Frank Davis, Ren Draya, Tom Regnier, Earl Showerman, Paul Altrocchi, Marty Hyatt, Ron Halstead, Michael Egan, Alex McNeil, John Shahan, Roger Stritmatter, Matthew Cossolotto, Ron Hess, Alan Green and John Hamill, Stratford’s “Will” is guaranteed to be lassoed, hog-tied and branded Texas style!
Keir Cutler will give two performances – his monologue based on Mark Twain’s “Is Shakespeare Dead?” and his formidably entertaining “Teaching Shakespeare.” Saturday’s session will end with “Shakespeare’s Treason,” Hank Whittemore’s explosive explication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets!
The block of rooms at the Doubletree Hotel that is reserved for the conference at the discounted conference rate of $99 is going quickly. So don’t wait to make your reservations. The Doubletree has free shuttle service from IAH that leaves every half hour. Thrifty Car Rental is located near the Doubletree for additional transportation.
The full registration fee is only $200, and this will include two luncheons and treats throughout the conference!
Registration forms can be printed off both SF and SOS websites:
www.shakespearefellowship.org
To pay by credit card, register online at:
http://www.goestores.com/catalog.aspx?Merchant=shakespeareoxfordsociety&DeptID=170579
For online hotel reservations, contact Angelica at Doubletree: 281-848-4001 or 1-800-222-TREE, angelica.canto@hilton.com, or reserve online at:
http://doubletree.hilton.com/en/dt/groups/personalized/HOUAPDT-SHP-20091105/index.jhtml
A printable registration form is at:
http://shakespeare-oxford.com/wp-content/uploads/Conference_Registration_Form_2009.pdf
Independent Oxfordian researcher John Shahan has agreed to allow SOS to publish his letter to the Telegraph regarding their August 9, 2009 article on the possible opening of Fulke Greville’s tomb.
Re: David Harrison’s article, “Tomb Search Could End Riddle of Shakespeare’s Identity,” in the Sunday Telegraph, August 8, 2009
Dear Editor,
The proposed tomb search of Fulke Greville’s tomb at St. Mary’s church depends on the credibility of historian AWL Saunders, and there’s reason to doubt his credibility. On the first page of the preface (ix) of The Master of Shakespeare (MoS Publishing, 2007), the book in which Saunders puts forth Greville as the author of Shakespeare’s works, he places great emphasis on the stylometric results of Professors Ward E. Y. Elliott and Robert Valenza at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. He also calls special attention to “Elliott and Valenza’s Results” at his website: http://www.masterofshakespeare.com/elliott_valenza.htm (Note that he gives no results.)
The problem is that Elliott and Valenza themselves disagree! This undermines Saunders’ entire case, since he chose to place such emphasis on it, and it is totally false. Saunders’ claims are based on an early report of Elliott and Valenza’s results back in 1990, but shortly afterward they reported more definitive results eliminating Greville. Ever since the early 1990s, Elliott and Valenza have consistently said that their stylometric results have ruled out all alternative authorship candidates, including Greville.
As a Claremont resident myself, and being familiar with E&V’s work (having written three articles on it), I emailed Ward Elliott in 2007 to ask if he agreed that his results support Greville, and whether Saunders had consulted him and Valenza before going public with his claims. Elliott replied that, “Greville’s Caelica was a Shakespeare ‘could be’ on one test in 1990, but it was later rejected on several other [tests], and is not a likely Shakespeare work.” He said that Saunders had not consulted them.
It was at least irresponsible for Saunders to give Elliott and Valenza’s work so much prominence, claiming it as the basis of their discovery of Greville as Shakespeare, and suggesting in 2007 that these seventeen-year-old results still stood, without ever consulting E&V, and ignoring all of the contrary findings in their subsequent work. How can a so-called scholar who is so careless about checking his claims (and this is not a minor claim on some peripheral point) be trusted to get it right elsewhere? I’m frankly amazed that Saunders is still being taken seriously two years after he published his book. It makes one wonder whether anyone ever checks facts anymore.
I believe that this should be brought to the attention of your readers, and also to those at St. Mary’s church who will be making the decision about the proposed search.
Sincerely,
John Shahan
The London Telegraph reported August 9, 2009: Tomb search could end the riddle of Shakespeare’s true identity — a sarcophagus in an English parish church could solve the century’s old literary debate over who really wrote the plays of William Shakespeare by David Harrison.
The interest is based on Master of Shakespeare author AWL Sanders’ claim that Fulke Greville is a candidate for Bardship. Text at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/5995083/Tomb-search-could-end-riddle-of-Shakespeares-true-identity.html
Patrice Thompson shared this information about:
Catholic Themes in Shakespeare’s Plays Seminar and Retreat at Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos, CA August 17-21
Emeritus professor of English literature at Sophia University, Tokyo Peter Milward, S.J., a pioneer in the study of Catholicism and the works of Shakespeare, will be leading a seminar and retreat focusing on Marian heroines in Shakespeare’s Jacobean plays. He will also lead a contemplation of Shakespeare’s plays in light of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Readings will include Othello, The Tempest, Measure for Measure, All’s Well That Ends Well, King Lear, Henry VIII, Pericles, Cymbeline, and The Winter’s Tale.
The seminar will be held in Los Altos, California, at the Jesuit Retreat Center from the afternoon of August 17 through the morning of August 21. The total cost, including accommodations and meals, is $450. For more information or to attend, please contact Andrea Campana at campanaa@yahoo.com or Patrice Thompson at patricia_inez@yahoo.com.
Fr. Milward will give a public lecture on the Catholic Shakespeare at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, CA on Tuesday, August 25 at seven p.m. Admission is free.
Fr. Milward will also be leading a pilgrimage to northern California missions from August 21 through August 26.
A list of Fr. Milward’s works on Shakespeare can be found on the website of Boston College’s Religion and the Arts magazine at: http://www.bc.edu/publications/relarts/supplements/shakespeare.html
For more information on this event, please contact Patrice Thompson at patricia_inez@yahoo.com.
Derran Charleton reported to SOS on the death of Oxfordian Paul Blair in California:
It is with deep regret that I report the death of the eminent Oxfordian Paul Blair of Pasadena, CA., who died at his home, aged 94 on the 24th June, 2009.
Having enjoyed a small meal, Paul lay down for a short nap; and gently passed from nature to eternity.
His warm hospitality in Pasadena and where ever he happened to be, with any of his friends, both sides of the Atlantic, was unbounded. He was a brilliant Beverly Hills and Pasadena lawyer, an avid Oxfordian, and a darling most generous man.
I first met Paul over twenty years ago, when he kindly invited me to his home in Pasadena to confer de Vere, and study at the nearby Huntington Library. On later visits he kindly introduced me to Carol Sue Lipman, President of the Shakespeare Authorship Roundtable, where I was privileged to present several Oxfordian talks.
I particularly recall visiting and talking Oxford at an annual weekend Vaquero Exhibition held on Paul`s ranch near Santa Barbara. Incidentally, Paul`s ranch was situated next to the ranches of President Reagan and Michael Jackson.
During his visits to England, Paul delighted in visiting Castle Hedingham and environs, beautiful York (the city of the centuries), and Scotland, the land of his ancestors.
When I recently stayed at the home of Verily Anderson together with Paul`s daughter Heather and her husband Michael, and many of Paul`s English friends, we raised our hearts and glasses in happy memories of Paul.
Paul is succeeded by his daughter Heather, and his sons Duncan and Ian. We all miss Paul, and will never forget his many Oxfordian endeavors.
Elizabethan Review editor and publisher Gary Goldstein announced the magazine is available on the web at: www.elizabethanreview.com
In a message to SOS, Goldstein said:
The Elizabethan Review (ISSN 1066-7059) was published from 1993 to 1999 in 13 semi-annual issues and is now available on CD in searchable PDF format via the website www.elizabethanreview.com. As the first peer-reviewed journal to focus on the Shakespeare Authorship Issue from an Oxfordian perspective, the Review was cited in the most recent edition of /The Winter’s Tale/ published by Oxford University Press.
Established as a forum for both affiliated and independent scholars, /ER/ assembled an editorial board in the United States, England and Australia whose combined expertise encompass the disciplines of theater, literature, music, horticulture, history and theology. Contributors include professors, poets, and actors, a colonel in the U.S. Army, a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a member of the English nobility.
The contents of the Elizabethan Review are indexed by the three major bibliographies in the humanities: the MLA International Bibliography; the Bibliography of English Language and Literature by Cambridge University; and the World Shakespeare Bibliography by the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Major holdings of the print edition can be found at leading American universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Wisconsin, and Chicago; universities in Canada and Europe, such as McGill, Oxford, Cambridge, Ferrara and Goettingen, as well as public and private libraries throughout the United States.
On-site, you can read a selection of four articles from the journal, review a table of contents for all issues published, and place orders for the entire 930 pages of the Review’s print run from 1993-1999 on CD. Single copies of the CD are available for $50 via PayPal, credit card, or check. Libraries, universities and other organizations may submit purchase orders to the publisher for order fulfillment and invoicing.
Gary B. Goldstein
Editor and Publisher
Shakespeare Oxford Society -- Online News 