UA’s Hudson Strode Program Presents Renaissance Studies Lecture Series

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at The University of Alabama announces its spring 2006 Strode Lecture Series schedule.

All lectures will be in 301 Morgan Hall on the UA campus and begin at 5 p.m. They are free and open to the public and co-sponsored by New College.

Monday, Jan. 30
Dr. Celia Daileader
“The Cleopatra Complex: The White Actress on the Classic Inter-racial Stage”

Daileader is an associate professor at Florida State University, specializing in Renaissance literature, feminist theory and critical race studies. She has written several books and essays on sexuality, gender and race in Shakespeare and early English literature. She co-organized the 2005 Alabama Symposium, “Women and Others,” and is co-editor of the forthcoming volume based on that symposium in the “Signs of Race” series.

Monday, Feb. 27
Dr. Richard Burt
“Backstage Pass(ing): Stage Beauty, Othello, and the Makeup of Race”

Burt, a professor at the University of Florida, is the author of numerous articles on Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, literary theory, the erotics of pedagogy and censorship. Burt held a Fulbright scholarship in Berlin, Germany from 1995–96 and taught there at Free University and Humboldt University. He is editing a reference book on Shakespeare in mass media entitled Shakespeare Alive and completing three books, “Dis-orienting Shakespeare: The Remains of the Plays in Asian and Disaporic Cinemas,” “The Schlock of Cinematic Medievalism” and “Renaissance Remakes: Post-National Film and the Infidelities of History.”

Monday, March 13
Dr. Thomas Cartelli
“Channeling Othello”

Cartelli is a professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania.

His primary teaching fields are Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, postcolonial literatures (particularly the literature of the Caribbean), occasionally modern British fiction (particularly the work of James Joyce) and, increasingly, film. He has written two books on Shakespeare and is working on two more.

Tuesday, April 4
Dr. Courtney Lehmann
“Colorblind Casting or Faux Show? Falling Into History in Love’s Labour’s Lost”

Lehmann is an associate professor at the University of the Pacific in California, teaching courses in British literature, especially Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, as well as film, and is the director of the Mentor One Interdisciplinary Seminar for Freshmen. Her publications on Shakespeare and cinema have appeared in journals such as Textual Practice, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Quarterly, Colby Quarterly, Post Script and Cineaste.

Monday, April 10
Dr. Stephen Buhler
“From Cineplex to Niche-Market: Adapting Shakespearean Tragedy”

Buhler is graduate chair and professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Previously director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies program at UNL and research fellow at the Huntington and Folger Shakespeare Libraries, he also has served as actor, composer, director, dramaturg, musician and text editor for several theatrical productions. He has conducted regional and national workshops on the teaching of Shakespeare and has published numerous articles on Renaissance literature and its connections with the performing arts. His book, “Shakespeare in the Cinema: Ocular Proof,” is considered a definitive text on strategies employed in adapting Shakespeare’s plays for the screen.

The Strode Program is a privately endowed program to promote the study of English literature. The endowment provides for lectures and residencies by distinguished scholars, and fellowships for graduate study at UA in the field of English Renaissance Literature. The program is named after Hudson Strode, a prolific author and celebrated teacher of Shakespeare and of creative writing who served on the UA faculty from 1916 to 1963.

The Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies is part of the English department in the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama. The College of Arts and Sciences is the University’s largest division and the largest public liberal arts college in the state. Students from the college have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the “USA Today” Academic All American Team.