"The World's Common Place"

Leveling the Shakespearean Playing Field

Abstract

Based at Emory University, the World Shakespeare Project (WSP) uses videoconferencing to connect students and faculty from India, Morocco, Brazil, Argentina, England, and several North American Tribal Colleges in Shakespearean performance exercises and discussions. As much as possible, the WSP endeavors to facilitate both cooperative and collaborative research and pedagogy so that each partner institution contributes and gains something substantive through these collaborations despite disparate socioeconomic, geographical, religious, educational, technological, and cultural divides among the participants. In the context of what here is being termed "Service Shakespeare," therefore, these partnerships problematize the concept of "service"; the WSP supports an exchange where common ground is identified wherever possible, while each partner also offers distinctive contributions specific to its own cultural, historic, and geographical particulars.