On October 5, the Pequot Library in Southport, Conn., invited patrons to discover how Shakespeare became the most famous writer in the English language, during an opening celebration that featured co-curators of their new exhibition, How William Became Shakespeare: Four Hundred Years of the First Folio: Cecily Dyer, special collections librarian, and Shannon Kelley, PhD, director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program and associate professor of English at Fairfield University.
The evening began with a guided walkthrough of the exhibition and a moderated discussion about the future of Shakespeare studies with alumni of the Fairfield University’s English Department: Diallo Simon-Ponte ’20, Kayla Sullivan ’20, and Aarushi Vijay ’22. The panel was moderated by Fairfield University student Annie Marino ’24.
The panelists spoke about the difficulties and rewards found in Shakespeare’s work and his complicated past, and they imagined possible futures in college and K-12 education through critical readings, new performances, and Black, Caribbean, and South Asian adaptations. More than 100 patrons registered to attend the event.
Then, a conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stephen Greenblatt, PhD, took place. Dr. Greenblatt is the Harvard University John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities and author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, as well as Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2012 for Will in the World, as well as the National Book Award for nonfiction.
