Sex, Science, and the Supernatural: Getting to the Bottom of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Featuring Mary Floyd-Wilson
In collaboration with the PlayMakers Repertory Company production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
November 7-8, 2014
Once again, we pair up with PlayMakers Repertory Company, this time to take a closer look at A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Of all of Shakespeare’s works, A Midsummer Night’s Dream stirs the imagination of young and old perhaps more than any other, and remains an audience favorite to this day. Part farce and part fantasy, the play is, however, much more than a whimsical fairy tale. Take a tour through the many worlds in the work with the entertaining and erudite Mary Floyd-Wilson. Dr. Floyd-Wilson will discuss how Shakespeare’s audience approached romantic coupling and sexuality, contemporaries’ ideas about magic and fairies, and how the Bard pieced obscure sources together to make an original masterpiece. Come enjoy a weekend of Shakespeare like you’ve never seen him before!
Mary Floyd-Wilson is Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is the winner of a Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the author of English Ethnicity and Race in Early Modern Drama and Occult Knowledge, Science and Gender on the Shakespearean Stage.
Topics
“How Slow this Old Moon Wanes”: Queen Elizabeth, Sex, and the Single Girl in A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Making the Breathless Housewife Churn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Domesticity of Magical Belief
“When Thou Hast Stolen Away from Fairy Land”: The Science of Fairies in Elizabethan England
The Mechanical Work and Play of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Time & Cost
4:30 p.m. Friday, November 7 through 12:00 p.m. Saturday, November 8, 2014. The tuition is $125 ($110 by August 29). Tuition for teachers is $62.50 ($55 by August 29). 10 contact hours for 1 unit of renewal credit. The optional dinner on Friday evening is $20.00. A limited number of tickets are available for the opening night performance at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday night; this optional play ticket is $23.00.
For information about lodging click here.
Co-Sponsored by the General Alumni Association.
For information about GAA discounts and other scholarships available to Humanities Program participants, click here.