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Renaissance literature scholar Jyotsna Singh will take a fresh look at Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra and King Lear at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 in Kirby Hall of Civil Rights room 104 as part of the annual Conarroe Lecture.
The lecture, “The Politics of Empathy in Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra and King Lear: A View from Below,” will re-examine the tragic genre, especially from the perspective of minor characters to present a critical and cultural re-orientation of the texts through the lens of early modern constructions of race and class.
Ian Smith, associate professor and associate head of English, says, “I am hoping that students will be introduced to a broader view of the Renaissance, one that is informed by cultural and social history and expands the kinds of questions we consider crucial to ask as readers of early modern texts.”
Singh, an associate professor of English at MichiganStateUniversity, is a specialist in Renaissance literature and literary theory, paying special attention to travel literature, Islam, imperialism, feminism, and race in the early modern period. She is particularly interested in the emerging “global Renaissance” which focuses on an internationalist perspective through the intersections of political and material interests.
Her publications include Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: ‘Discoveries of India in the Language of Colonialism and The Weyward Sisters: Shakespeare and Feminist Politics. She has also co-edited Travel Knowledge: European ‘Discoveries’ in the Early Modern Period and is the editor of A Companion to the Global Renaissance: English Literature and Culture in the Era of Expansion, 1550-1665, forthcoming in 2007. She earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. from SyracuseUniversity.
The Conarroe Lecture series is funded by a bequest to the English department from Lewis Haupt Conarroe ’29, an advertising writer and novelist. Each year, a distinguished scholar and teacher delivers an evening lecture to a general audience and then leads a seminar the following day for English department faculty.