Arts One and IKBLC Present Shakespeare's Tempest Lecture

Come join us as Killam Teaching Prize-winner Robert Crawford presents “Upstart Crew: Mutinous Winds in Shakespeare’s Tempest”, an Arts One public lecture. Shakespeare’s final, richly allegorical play has been subjected to widely differing interpretation. But two readings persist: 1. it is a thinly disguised commentary on, and farewell to, the stage; 2. it is an early foray into colonial studies that either supports the projects of empire-building and slavery, or remains noncommittal about these evils. This lecture argues that neither interpretation comes close to capturing the almost wholly political interests of the play, concerns that are focused more on England than the “New World” and border on sedition.

Shakespeare disguises these dangerous interests in an subtle allegory hinging on an established linkage between seamanship and rulership, and in the seemingly minor characters of boatswain, master, and ship’s crew. Dominant readings aside, this play has as much to do with statecraft as stagecraft.

November 16, 2009, 12:00-2:00pm – The Victoria Learning Theatre (Room 182) at Irving K. Barber Learning Centre