Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T22:45:21.048Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Performing Shakespeare in digital culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Robert Shaughnessy
Affiliation:
University of Kent, Canterbury
Get access

Summary

I began thinking about this essay in the central library of the Czech Academy in Prague, as good a platform as any to stage an inquiry into the ways Shakespearean drama engages with digital culture. It's a large nineteenth-century room, two stories, with a mezzanine of book stacks around the upper level, a large ironwork skylight, and modern furniture. Although the shared computers for internet use are old and slow, the worktables each have several high-speed ports, so that you can connect your own laptop and work at your usual speed; there is high-speed wireless as well. As the day waxes, a number of writers, scholars, and students arrive to check mail, do research, and watch movies online. Cellphones are strictly prohibited, according to the signs at least: we are warned that even one ring will be cause for immediate ejection and loss of privileges. But phones ring, and to judge by the number of people grabbing for their pockets, many people simply have the ringer set to vibrate: there's little apparent concern about having a yellular conversation - at that somewhat irritating, loudish cellphone volume – though most other conversations are ritually hushed. This is not really a problem, though. No one complains, there are even relatively few nasty glances. Some people wear headphones; the woman opposite me seems to be transcribing or perhaps translating a long document, occasionally speaking into a webcam; and between bouts of actual writing, email, and internet searching, I'm playing and replaying the Almereyda Hamlet. Others are watching movies, too, and not always with headphones: a group of college-age men are gathered around a laptop which issues, with increasing frequency, the sounds of screeching tires and muffled explosions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×