Facing Europe in Crisis: Shakespeare's World and Present Challenges
New international programme links early-modern period with the present
In June 2019, the English department of Utrecht University will once again take part in an intensive programme organised by the NEW FACES consortium. They will study the question: what can we learn from Shakespeare’s world about the current crisis in Europe?
In 2017, we took part in the NEW FACES programme in Szeged, Hungary, and in 2018 in Montpellier, France. The third intensive programme, held under the project’s general title Facing Europe in Crisis: Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges, will be hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Porto (Portugal), from the 17th to the 29th June 2019.
International programme
The intensive programme will count on the presence of 60 students and 20 teaching staff from the consortium’s universities; Utrecht will delegate 2 teachers and 7 students. The two-week programme will consist of a series of academic seminars, combined with round-table discussions and extension activities, organised in collaboration with some of the NEW FACES associate partners. A full detailed schedule will be available soon via this link.
NEW FACES
NEW FACES is a European Strategic Partnership that aims to promote historical and literary understanding of the complexities of crises (cultural, linguistic, political, social, religious, and economic), to help face a complex contemporary European context. The multidisciplinary approach will trace similarities of the present developments to, and their differences from, the dynamics of the early modern period (16th-17th centuries).
Hence the focus of the NEW FACES Strategic Partnership on the cultural, political and economic functions of early modern theatre and its wider historical and literary context as global values and principal agents of cultural communication in relation to Europe in Crisis. The salient feature of this perspective is the interaction of Shakespeare’s theatre with local and global contexts which has been significantly influencing popular and mass culture.
At the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Univ. Porto) New Faces is supported by CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies) and coordinated by Rui Carvalho Homem (DEAA).