Postgraduate news and events

The talk marks the launch of Beth Sharrock's book Shakespeare Broadcasts and the Question of Value, which has just been published online and is available Open Access until 24 February. The link is here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/shakespeare-broadcasts-and-the-question-of-value/A2C05A4F87ED74CCCCCA308FE347F3B0Link opens in a new window

‘Shakespeare Broadcasts and the Question of Value’

Dr Beth Sharrock, University of Warwick

In a talk to mark the launch of her book Shakespeare Broadcasts and the Question of Value (Cambridge Elements ‘Shakespeare and Text’ series), Beth Sharrock gives an overview of her work. What is the role of theatre companies, adapters, and editors in the shifting value of Shakespeare’s plays? Her book considers how RSC live theatre broadcasts of rarely performed, often critically maligned, works are presented to contemporary audiences through the ‘paratextual’ interviews and short films streamed alongside a live performance in cinemas. Setting these broadcasts in conversation with late 17th and early 18th century print editions and adaptations, she traces an earlier history which uses marginal spaces in both print and performance to (re)negotiate the value of canonically marginal plays. Her book uses three case study broadcasts: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2014), Titus Andronicus (2017), and The Merry Wives of Windsor (2018). In so doing, her work explores paratextual articulations of excusal, apology, and disappointment to question the role of the theatre institution in mediating the ‘difficult’ value of Shakespeare’s works.

Beth Sharrock is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies. Prior to her role here, she taught at the University of Birmingham, Coventry University, and the University of Nottingham. She has previously been a research assistant on the AHRC-funded network, Adapting the Classics. In 2022, she was awarded an M4C Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Birmingham to undertake work on the (anti)sociability of Shakespeare’s eighteenth century editors.