The Jankofsky Fund will celebrate Shakespeare's First Folio with a lecture by Dr. Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, on Fri., Oct. 21 at 5:30 pm in Bohannon 90. Dr. Witmore's lecture is entitled “Centuries of Shakespeare.“ This event is free and open to the public.
Music from Shakespeare's time will be performed by The College of St. Scholastica's Center for Early Music. A reception and exhibit viewing will follow the program. The exhibit First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare is on display in the Tweed Museum of Art through Oct. 26. For more First Folio events, visit http://d.umn.edu/shakespeares-first-folio
Shakespeare remains one of the most widely read authors in the world. We are now be celebrating the beginning of the fifth century of his afterlife as playwright, poet, and literary celebrity. What does the way in which people celebrate the centuries-long reach of Shakespeare teach us about this writer, about ourselves, and our world? Why do the words of this man from Warwickshire still inspire readers, playgoers, and writers? Michael Witmore will talk about what it has been like to celebrate this centenary year of Shakespeare across the country, and what this experience teaches us about our own century's continuing attachment to Shakespeare.
Dr. Witmore became director of the Folger in 2011. He was formerly professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and before that he served as associate professor of English and assistant professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University. The recipient of numerous fellowships, he has held an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, a research fellowship and a curatorial residency fellowship at the Folger, and a predoctoral fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin. Dr. Witmore earned an A.B. in English at Vassar College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. Among his more recent projects, he launched the Working Group for Digital Inquiry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and organized the Pittsburgh Consortium for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Dr. Witmore's publications include numerous articles, website resources, and book chapters, and he has published five books: Landscapes of the Passing Strange: Reflections from Shakespeare, with Rosamond Purcell (2010), Shakespearean Metaphysics (2009), Pretty Creatures: Children and Fiction in the English Renaissance (2007), Childhood and Children’s Books in Early Modern Europe, 1550-1800 (2006), and Culture of Accidents: Unexpected Knowledge in Early Modern England (2001). In addition, he has given scores of presentations and been invited to serve on numerous academic panels. He currently has several books in progress, including a study of early modern wisdom literature and a book on the nature of digital inquiry in the humanities.
The Jankofsky Lecture Series was established in 1999 when a former student anonymously donated funds to the UMD English Department as a tribute to Professor Klaus Jankofsky’s career of outstanding teaching and scholarship in the field of medieval and renaissance studies. The first lecture was held in 2000.