ON PIRATES AND ASSES
Why Shakespeare was always queer as fuck
Friday 5 November 2021
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Known from the start of his career as “sweet master Shakespeare”, the famous playwright had an early reputation for writing about love and desire more than about anything else. Elizabethan University students slept with his poems under their pillows, whilst he wrote plays with plots that featured characters like Antonio the pirate, abandoned by the man that he loves. Shakespeare should definitely be thought of as a writer who generated a thousand queer narratives. Huw will guide you through some of these stories in a talk that will give you a fresh and decidedly queer perspective on Shakespeare and his writing.
Dr Huw Griffiths is a senior lecturer and chair of department at the Department of English, University of Sydney. He is the author of numerous articles on Shakespeare and of two books, including Shakespeare’s Body Parts (Edinburgh University Press, 2021).