Course info

Module Description:

Shakespeare is the only author currently required for secondary school students across England: his works hold a great deal of power in our culture. How has that power been co-opted and deployed by artists in different cultural contexts, working in different media? Shakespeare Across Media takes a comparative approach and unites our departmental disciplines of literature, film, drama and creative writing to examine how interpretations of Shakespeare have developed across time and cultural boundaries.

This module covers a variety of adaptations of one Shakespeare play in different media, such as films, novels, graphics novels, fan fiction, poems, fine art, and performance. Looking across media, rather than sticking to just one medium, will give you the tools to ask questions about Shakespeare's authority and cultural power, the politics of adaptation, and the limits of creative interventions in canonical texts. You will also be encouraged to undertake your own creative responses to Shakespeare.

Module Aims: 

The aims of the module are:

1. To introduce the period in a form accessible to first-year students by capitalising on their existing familiarity with Shakespeare and challenging them with a new approach to his work.

2. To complement the Department's strengths in interdisciplinary studies (film, drama, and literature) and in translation and comparative literature

3. To respond to a vibrant and growing field in Shakespeare studies

4. To broaden students’ appreciation of and critical skills in relation to adaptations of Shakespeare from around the world.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the module:

1. Students will be familiar with a group of texts – both original plays and adaptations – and the significance of their literary and cultural merit.

2. Students will be able to evaluate the effect of political and cultural circumstances on the adaptation, having studied the changing treatments of Shakespeare's texts across multiple languages, time periods, and cultural contexts.

3. Students will begin to build skills in postcolonial, critical race, and decolonial theory, which they will be able to apply to their analyses of the films and plays we study.

4. Skills in presentation and interdisciplinary critical analysis will be developed in the seminars on this module.

Course Leader:  

Dr Nora J. Williams -- call me Nora, please. I use she/her pronouns.

You can email me at: n.williams@essex.ac.uk

I'll check email at the start and end of each working day (M-F). I will aim to respond to all emails within 3 working days.

Academic Support Hours (ASH):

TBC for Autumn 2022

ASH are times when I will be available to meet with students by default. I will never have anything other than student meetings scheduled during these times. They are here to support you in your learning. When you come to ASH, we might discuss questions you have about the reading, brainstorm ideas for an assessment, or go deeper into a topic that you’re particularly interested in.

You are always welcome at ASH even if there’s nothing ‘wrong’—it’s okay (and encouraged!) for you to come by just to chat about how things are going in the module or your course.

There are two ways to access ASH this term: drop-in and by appointment.

You can drop in on Mondays between 11:00am and 12:00pm at this Zoom link (or use meeting ID 9913 3818 930).

Alternatively, you can schedule a 15-minute appointment on Mondays between 12:00pm and 1:00pm using this Calendly link. After you’ve scheduled a time, I will send you a unique Zoom link for the meeting.

If there are no appointments available in the week you’d like to meet, or if Mondays aren’t available for you, feel free to email me, and we’ll do our best to arrange another time to meet.