Early Modern Strangers, April 3

Early Modern Strangers poster final

On April 3, 7:30 pm, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center (620 Greensboro Ave, Tuscaloosa), Improbable Fictions will stage a selection of readings around the theme of strangers. Pre-show music begins at 7:00 pm. As always, IF events are free and open to the public.

Our inspiration piece for this event is Shakespeare’s monologue about immigration and empathy from the many-authored play Sir Thomas More. The play has gained a lot of attention in recent years, thanks in part to Sir Ian Mckellen, and we wanted to place this powerful passage in its early modern context, staging it alongside excerpts from Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, The Tempest, and Titus Andronicus, as well as selections from medieval folklore, Mandeville,  and Brecht. Our hope is to start a conversation about what it means to be treated as a stranger in a strange land both then and now, and UA’s own Dr. Cordelia Ross will kick off a post-show Q&A with some thoughts from her own research on the subject.

We’re still gathering together readers for this event, so if you’re interested in taking part in an IF production, shoot me an email at nrhelms@ua.edu, or reach out to me on Twitter @nrhelms.

As always, IF productions are sponsored by the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies, part of The University of Alabama Dept. of English.

 

Resurgens presents The Changeling

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The Strode Program is very excited to be sponsoring the Resurgens Theatre Company’s touring performance of The Changeling on Tuesday, February 26, 7:30PM, in the Allen Bales Theater here on campus.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, The Changeling is a fantastically dark, yet timely revenge tragedy that powerfully explores issues of sexual desire, betrayal, and madness.  This is a wonderful opportunity to see a professional production of a rarely performed masterpiece of the Jacobean stage right here on campus—don’t miss it!

Tickets for this event are *free* but must be reserved online through this link:  https://thechangeling2019.brownpapertickets.com

Please also feel free to spread the word to anyone who might be interested in the show!

A few notes:

  • Tickets are general admission
  • When you come to the performance, you will need to either 1) print out and present your ticket at the door OR 2) show the ticket on your phone at the door
  • Brent Griffin, Artistic Director of the Resurgens Theater Company will also be giving a public lecture prior to the performance on Tuesday, February 26 at 5PM in the Allen Bales Theatre, so please also plan to join us for that (no ticket needed for the lecture).
  • More information about the Resurgens Theatre Company can be found here: http://www.resurgenstheatre.org/About_Resurgens.html

Strode events, Spring 2019

We have an exciting slate of Strode-sponsored programs coming up this spring, compiled by program director and Hudson Strode Professor Michelle Dowd– please take note of these events and mark your calendars accordingly!   Thanks to the abundance of early modern performances and films on offer this semester, Improbable Fictions is temporarily shifting focus away from Shakespeare and toward less bardolized early modern playwrights: Margaret Cavendish, John Lyly, and Margherita Costa.
 
Sponsored Performances:
We are sponsoring three fantastic performances this spring in conjunction with EN667, The Shakespeare in Performance Practicum.  All three events are free and open to all members of the UA community.  A poster for the ASC shows is attached.  More details to follow!
  • American Shakespeare Center touring company performance of The Comedy of Errors, Friday, February 15, 7:30PM (pre-show music begins at 7:00PM).  Brock Recital Hall, Samford University, Birmingham. 
  • American Shakespeare Center touring company performance of The Winter’s Tale, Saturday, February 16, 7:30PM (pre-show music begins at 7:00PM).  Brock Recital Hall, Samford University, Birmingham. 
  • Resurgens Theatre Company touring performance of The Changeling, Tuesday, February 26, 7:30PM.  Allen Bales Theater, UA.
asc hand of time tour poster
Guest Speakers: 
We are excited to welcome the following guest speakers this spring.  All events are free and open to the public:
  • Brent Griffin, Artistic Director of the Resurgens Theater Company.  Tuesday, February 26.  Title TBA.  5PM in the Allen Bales Theatre (UA).
  • Wendy Wall (Northwestern University).  Thursday, March 28.  Title TBA.  5PM in 301 Morgan Hall.
Strode Film Series:
Please also check out the Strode Film Series schedule for the spring.  Note that some events will be held at the Bama theater, and others will be held on campus.  All shows are free and open to the public.  For more information, please visit the Film Series’ website: http://shakespearefilmseries.ua.edu/
  • Monday, January 28: Globe Production of The Duchess of Malfi.  Morgan 301, 7:30PM.
  • Monday, February 11. Warm Bodies.  Bama Theatre, 7:30PM.
  • Monday, March 25: Kozintsev’s King Lear.  Morgan 301, 7:30PM.
  • Monday, April 15:  Shakespeare in Love.  Bama Theatre, 7:30PM. 
Improbable Fictions:
Improbable Fictions is hosting several events this spring. The first three are for small groups and thus aren’t appropriate as a broad extra credit opportunity for students, but the last performance will be perfect for 200 level English courses and the like. If you’d like to participate or just come listen to the first three, please RSVP.
  • Wed, Jan 16, 6:30pm in 301 Morgan Hall, a cold reading of Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure, dramaturged by Chris Koester (cwkoester@ua.edu).
  • Wed, Feb 6, 6:30pm in 301 Morgan Hall, a cold reading of John Lyly’s Gallathea, dramaturged by Mark Hulse (mchulse@crimson.ua.edu). 
  • Wed, Mar 6, time TBA at the Strode House, a cold reading of Margherita Costa’s burlesque “ridiculous comedy” entitled The Buffoons (1641), translated by Jessica Goethals. The reading will be dramaturged by Deborah Parker (parkerburch@comcast.net). 
  • Wed, Apr 3, 7:30pm at the Tuscaloosa Cultural Arts Center (http://cac.tuscarts.org/contactus.php), a selection of staged readings we’re calling “Early Modern Strangers,” inspired by Shakespeare’s “The Stranger’s Case” from Sir Thomas More (check out Sir Ian McKellen’s reading). The event will include  respondents and a Q&A about immigration and crossing borders in the early modern period. Dramaturged by Nic Helms and Cordelia Ross (nrhelms@ua.edu, caross4@ua.edu).
We’ve still got room for participants for all shows, so feel free to reach out to Nic Helms (nrhelms@ua.edu) or any of our directors if you’re interested!
 
Please mark your calendars for these events, and stay tuned for additional announcements and updates!!!
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And, if you aren’t doing so already, please follow us on Facebook and Twitter: “Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies” (FB); @hudstrode (Twitter); and @improbfictions (Twitter).

Othello post mortem

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Our staged reading of Othello was a smashing success attended by a packed house of over 125 people. You can find pictures here, courtesy of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences. I’d also like to share with you the program from the event (Othello_playbill) and an audio recording of the reading:

[The play begins at about the 6 minute mark. The audio quality is improved this time around, though beware: applause and the guitar are coming through rather loud at the beginning and end of the recording.]

Medieval Medley

Last week’s Medieval Medley was a delight! We packed out Gorgas 205 with an audience of nearly eighty. I can’t decide whether my favorite moment was Steve Burch spouting ‘LATIN!’ or Mark Cobb making out with pots and pans. If you missed the event (or would like to relive it), check out the media below: the program, production photos, and audio from the event. (Listen with care: the audio quality is not the best.)

 

 

IF Fall 2018, Medieval Medley final

Medieval Medley Program

IF Fall 2018

IF Fall 2018

Improbable Fictions is hosting three events this fall:

· Wednesday, Sep 12, 7:30 pm, Medieval Medley, a staged reading of several Medieval plays, including works from Hrotsvitha and the Chester Cycle, at 205 Gorgas Library

· Wednesday, Oct 17, 7:30 pm, a staged reading of Shakespeare’s Othello at the Tuscaloosa Cultural Arts Center (http://cac.tuscarts.org/contactus.php)

· Friday, November 2, 5:00 pm, Improbable Fictions will present an array of American Literature readings as part of First Friday Art Walk in Downtown Tuscaloosa and the Southern Literary Trail’s Exhibit of the Steve Soboroff Typewriter Collection. On display will be George Bernard Shaw’s typewriter along with others used by Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Gore Vidal, Ray Bradbury, Tom Hanks, Maya Angelou, and John Lennon. The readings and exhibit will be at the Tuscaloosa Cultural Arts Center (http://cac.tuscarts.org/contactus.php).

As always, if you’re interested in getting involved, leave a comment or email me at nrhelms@ua.edu!

To knit the knot: embodied mind in John Donne’s “The Ecstasy”

My essay on cognition and John Donne is available now from The Seventeenth Century: “To knit the knot: embodied mind in John Donne’s ‘The Ecstasy.'”

If you’re interested in reading my work, I’ve got a limited number of free eprints I can distribute. Email me and I’ll send you the link (nrhelms@ua.edu).

Here’s the abstract:

For John Donne’s “The Ecstasy”, cognitive ecology offers a new approach to the divide between Platonism and Aristotelianism in the poem, presenting a continuum between body and soul rather than an opposition or equivalence. In this essay, I argue that Donne charts a continuum of body and soul through a chain of metaphors, knitting together an ecstasy that is both outside and beside the self. One can neither conceive of nor experience such an ecstasy without employing embodied metaphors, metaphors that enable the conceptual movement within the poem. Strictly speaking, souls cannot move, speak, mix, or descend: all these actions are embodied concepts that use human motor-schema to map out abstract notions. The soul’s movement occurs in a conceptual space carved out through this chaotic change and exchange of embodied metaphors. This movement of the soul through the body, via the body, knits the “knot, which makes us man”.

KEYWORDS: Donne, cognitive science, embodied metaphor, ecstasy, cognitive ecology

Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters

April is the cruelest month, and I am currently treading water in a sea of ungraded essays. That’s the backdrop for why I am so thrilled to announce that my book, Cognition, Mindreading, and Shakespeare’s Characters, will be published in 2019 as part of Palgrave Macmillan’s Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance Series! Thanks so much to everyone who has helped this project come to fruition, in particular my mentor Sharon O’Dair and everyone with the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama.

Thanks as well to Steve Burch, Tricia McElroy, Jen Drouin Perso, and Chase Wrenn for reading drafts and providing feedback, to Michelle Dowd for continued Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies support, to Kate Matheny for editing, and to Alissa Helms for supporting me, keeping me sane, and treading the waters of academia hand in hand with me! And to everyone else who has helped me along the path: social media doesn’t have enough space for me to thank everyone individually, so you’ll all have to settle for a hug in person.