Senate House Library runs an exciting range of events and engagement activities, opening up our unique collections to new visitors and members alike. Through talks, lectures, workshops and exhibitions the research carried out using our millions of books and items is brought to life. Please see below for our calendar and further information on how to book tickets.
Events and Exhibitions
This April to September Senate House Library’s Shakespeare season will explore our unique and diverse collection of Shakespeare material, commemorating the 400th Anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. More details of our major new exhibition Shakespeare Metamorphosis will be coming soon, including the opportunity to book tickets to our unique and exclusive Curator’s Room workshops, where visitors will have the opportunity to closely examine original material with the exhibition’s curators.
Thinking Inside the Boxes: An Exploration of Senate House Library’s Political Pamphlets Collection
23rd February 9:30 – 13:00
This event will showcase the Library’s collection of Latin American Political Pamphlets through some unique explorations: to do this, we asked five academics to investigate their own field using this collection as a primary source.
The Charles Holden Lecture 2016 – Senate House Library: Rise of the Phoenix
1 March 2016 18:00 – 19:00
Senate House Librarian Jackie Marfleet traces the history of the Library from its creation to the present day, and explores the opportunities and challenges it now faces. The Charles Holden Lecture is organised by the Friends of Senate House Library. To register, please contact Holly Peterson by email: holly.peterson@london.ac.uk. The venue is: The Chancellor’s Hall (Senate House, first floor), Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Psychology Research Day 2016
2 March 2016 10:00 – 16:00
A one-day programme ideal for postgraduate students and early career researchers. An opportunity to meet and learn about libraries, archives, digital resources, and research methods. Featuring an open psychology fair with information and advice about using psychology collections. one-on-one clinics in practical research skills and getting published and introductory sessions on training and research skills in libraries, archives and digital resources.
Bronze, silver and hair: an evening of discussion
3 March 2016 18:00 – 19:30
To coincide with the Library’s exhibition, ‘Not with Words but with Things’, three speakers will reflect upon three diverse objects in our care: a silver teaspoon belonging to Charles Dickens’ companion Ellen Ternan, a Carpenter medal awarded by the University of London to Nellie Carey, and a generous hair sample, seemingly of William Cobbett. Join us for an exploration of the residual value of such relics in an academic library.
Shakespeare Season opening keynote lecture: Shakespeare 1616-2116
Sir Jonathan Bate CBE FBA FRSL of Provost, Worcester College Oxford
15 April 2016 18:30 – 19:30
More information coming soon but book your place now to ensure a seat at our first event of the season!
From The Mad Wedding to Queen Lear: Remaking Shakespeare in Dutch, 1654–2015
20 April 2016 18:30 – 19:30
This talk examines some of the many ways in which the work of Shakespeare has been re-imagined in Dutch, starting with The Mad Wedding – Abraham Sybant’s 1654 translation of The Taming of the Shrew – and ending with Tom Lanoye’s Queen Lear (2015). Dr Dijkhuizen is interested especially in how Dutch translators and adaptors have responded to the political issues addressed in Shakespeare’s plays, such as gender, race relations and social hierarchies.
Metamorphosis of a Library: collecting Shakespeare at the University of London
26 April 2016 18:30 – 19:30
The University of London Library opened in 1877 with no more than German and Welsh translations of Hamlet, the Cambridge edition of Shakespeare’s works from 1863-6, and a volume of Shakespeare within the Anderson poets. This talk, by Dr Karen Attar, traces how, from inauspicious beginnings, the University Library came to boast early Shakespeare holdings as a major strength.
Shakespeare in 1916: the First World War and the Origins of Global Shakespeare
3 May 2016 18:30 – 19:30
In this talk, Professor Gordon McMullan will reflect on the intersection of the Shakespeare Tercentenary and the First World War, looking in particular at one of the main elements of Tercentenary commemoration, Israel Gollancz’s Book of Homage to Shakespeare. He will note the role of Shakespeare at this time as currency for cultural, political and social debate, arguing that the Book of Homage, even as it ostensibly celebrates Shakespeare as the ‘poet of empire’, marks the emergence of what we now call ‘global Shakespeare’.
Editing Shakespeare
10 May 2016 18:30-19:30
This talk considers how Shakespeare’s text has evolved over the last 400 years, examining theories about the purpose of editing and narratives about the origin of Shakespeare’s text and how its transmission into print vary over time. This talk, by Professor Sonia Massai, will examine how editors try present their rationales as more fitting to the task of representing Shakespeare than the methods used by their predecessors and what this means for Shaksepeare.
Shakespeare’s Common Prayers
11 May 2016 18:30 – 19:30
The Book of Common Prayer was the most popular book in early modern England; it was also a key source for Shakespeare’s plays of the period 1598-1606, in which the playwright repeatedly borrows the phrases and instructions from church rites and transforms them into dense, precise theatrical moments. Daniel Swift, Senior Lecturer in English at the New College of the Humanities, will explore how Shakespeare adapted, stole, and metamorphosed this vital source.
The Paradox of Shakespeare’s London
19 May 2016 18:30 – 19:30
London was the centre of Shakespeare’s world, where he lived and worked and the setting for many of his plays. But what was it like? Come and explore this strange and fascinating place and hear the voices of tourists and travellers who were amazed, baffled and delighted by the city.
Researching, revering and selling Shakespeare
25 May 2016 18:30 – 19:30
Senate House Library is justly proud of the vast and growing breadth of its holdings on Shakespeare, but despite the intensive research use made of them, the process by which these items are managed is generally of little interest to those outside the institution. An exception is the very public debate over the Library’s proposed sale of a set of Shakespeare folios in 2013. This presentation will draw on that discussion, and the figure Shakespeare, to examine libraries today.
Macbeth on the Victorian stage
16 June 2016 18:30 – 19:30
Macbeth was a very popular play in the nineteenth century, and most of the major actors tried their hand in the main roles. Productions were characterised by music and spectacle, including large numbers of singing witches. One of Shakespeare’s shortest plays often took more than three hours to perform. Professor Emerita, Sandra Clark, will consider the range and variety of the productions and the innovations some performers introduced.
Shakespeare’s First Folio: the biography of a book
20 June 2016 18:30 – 19:30
From the first known buyer of Shakespeare’s collected works, the aspirant cavalier Edward Dering, to the international press coverage of a new copy found in a Jesuit library in France, this talk, by Professor Emma Smith of Hertford College University of Oxford, asks how we might write the biography of a book.
Metamorphosis of ‘New Place’
28 June 016 18:30 – 19:30
Ever since 1759, there has been a space on the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane, Stratford-upon-Avon, the site of New Place, Shakespeare’s family home since 1597. From 2010 to 2015, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (with Staffordshire University) excavated the site, Dr Paul Edmondson argues it is now high time for a metamorphosis in Shakespearian biography, as well as for New Place itself, which is being newly presented for the 2016 anniversary year.
Shakespeare goes to Cambridge
12 July 2016 18:30 – 19:30
In the eighteenth century Trinity College was given an astonishing collection of early editions of Shakespeare, together with books assembled to provide a contemporary background. This lecture, from David McKitterick Vice Master of Trinity College Cambridge, will take the tale of Shakespeare in Cambridge down to our own times, including recent gifts to Trinity College.
Shakespeare Burlesqued
14 July 2016 18:30-19:30
The excessive worship of Shakespeare (‘Bardolatry’) in the 19th century and spectacular productions of his plays by star actors of the day produced a reaction in the form of burlesque versions of the more popular plays which were themselves enormously popular. This lecture, from Professor Michael Slater, will be exploring the work of some of the most prominent practitioners of this genre and considering the reasons for their success.
Dickens and Shakespeare
11 August 2016 18:30 – 19:30
For Dickens Shakespeare was the supreme literary artist, ‘that great master who knew everything’, and he delighted in the fact that so little was known about Shakespeare’s life so that it remains ‘a fine mystery’ to us. Dickens own work is deeply influenced by Shakespeare and saturated with Shakespearian references and allusions some of which will be explored in this lecture from Professor Michael Slater.
Reinterpreting Shakespeare’s will
18 August 2016 18:30 – 19:30
Shakespeare’s original signed will comprise three sheets of paper. Since being found in the 18th century, it has generated hundreds of pages of speculation and analysis, and achieved iconic status as a national treasure. Dr Amanda Bevan has read the will anew, looking not for character but for his intentions – and casts new light on how Shakespeare conducted himself as a husband, father, brother, grandfather and friend.
From 1899 to digital: The Arden Shakespeare, Shakespearean critical scholarship and the evolution of English as a discipline
25 August 2016 18:30 – 19:30
This paper, from Mary Ann Kernan, explores the history of the Arden Shakespeare series from its launch in 1899, when English was only beginning to be established as a scholarly discipline, to its current inclusion in Drama Online as part of Bloomsbury Publishing.
Shakespeare and the Digital World: When scholarship meets global capitalism
15 September 2016 18:30 – 19:30
Based on the book Shakespeare and the Digital world: Redefining Scholarship and Practice which tackles the thorny issues of authority and power, co-editor Christie Carson stresses the importance of continually redefining what is meant by ‘Shakespeare’ and ‘the digital’. In this paper she scrutinises her own work to illustrate the importance of speculating about the future in order to help to form, as well as inform, it.
Shakespeare Season closing Keynote: The Genius of Shakespeare
17 September 2016 18:30 – 19:30
This lecture will offer a personal response to the sources of Shakespeare’s verbal power and his rhetorical techniques. Discussing his greatness specifically as a dramatic poet with both verbal and non-verbal means of communication and his techniques of character portrayal. Delivered by Professor Stanley Wells, one of the world’s foremost Shakespearians.