Summary: As the world’s best-known playwright, Shakespeare has found his way into the lives of people far removed from his homeland and his native tongue. The dramatist who wrote for a theatre called the Globe now belongs in cultures as different as those of Germany, India and Japan—not to mention the United States, thanks in no small part to Amherst’s own Henry Clay Folger. But what qualities of Shakespeare’s works can account for such global mobility? And what light does their translation and adaptation shed on the opposing forces of cultural persistence and change? My examples will include current productions such as Young Jean Lee’s Lear and As You Like It directed by Sam Mendes, but participants are encouraged to discuss their own experiences of Shakespeare worldwide on page, stage and screen.
