Hospitality’s Flawed Promise in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor
Speaker: Prof. Jean Howard, Columbia University
Moderator: Prof. Hao Tianhu, Zhejiang University
Time: 10:00am-12:15am, March 3, 2025 (Beijing time)
Venue: 腾讯会议: 838 877 945, passcode: 250303
Abstract: In this talk I discuss the unusual number of “outsiders” in Windsor, the kinds of precarity they face, and the ways the town deals with these strangers, sometimes embracing them and sometimes denying them the benefits of hospitality. Hospitality was a valued if fragile early modern practice involving the Christian imperative to be liberal to the poor, to neighbors, and to travelers. I will argue that in this play Shakespeare tests the efficacy of hospitality as a way to create inclusive communities and the many factors, including nationality and rank, that place outsiders in jeopardy.
Jean E. Howard is George Delacorte Professor Emerita in the Humanities at Columbia University where she has taught Shakespeare; early modern, modern and contemporary theater; and American prison literature. An editor of The Norton Shakespeare, Howard is the author of six books including Engendering a Nation: A Feminist Account of Shakespeare’s English Histories, co-written with Phyllis Rackin and the award-winning Theater of a City: The Places of London Comedy. The winner of various fellowships and prizes, she is especially honored to have received Columbia’s Presidential Award for Distinguished Teaching and Columbia’s Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring.
浙江大学教育基金会钟子逸基金资助
