Nov. 13, 2008
L&S lecture series continues with talk on
the life and times of William Shakespeare
What was the Age of Shakespeare like and was it truly the golden
period for English drama? The complicated times of William Shakespeare
will be brought to life by English scholar James Stokes, professor
of English at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP).
Stokes will discuss Shakespeare’s tumultuous times using documents
from that time period in his presentation, “The Day the Globe
Theatre Burned to the Ground: Using Documents to Bring the Age
of Shakespeare to Life,” as part of the College of Letters and
Science 2008-09 lecture series.
Stokes’ lecture is free and open to the community at 7 p.m. on
Thursday, November 20, in Room 321 of the Collins Classroom Center.
“The time of Shakespeare was a very complicated era, filled with crisis
and change throughout English society,” said Stokes. “Societal changes
in those times were happening across the board including in science,
religion, culture, politics and philosophy. Fortunately, there survive
countless archival documents from this period that illustrate the many
societal changes taking place in England.”
A native of Montana, Stokes areas of expertise include the history
of drama, especially medieval and early modern drama, as well as the
study and publishing of ancient documents. He wrote a two-volume book
on the dramatic records of Somerset, England, published by the
University of Toronto Press in 1996. Another two-volume book,
in the same series, on the dramatic records of Lincolnshire will
be published next April.
For 27 years he has presented papers on culture, history, and
traditional entertainment at numerous national and international
conferences. Also a writer of poetry, Stokes has given readings
throughout Wisconsin over the years.
Stokes joined the UWSP faculty in 1981. He earned his bachelor’s
and master’s degrees from San Francisco State University and a
doctorate from Washington State University. He received the Eugene
Katz Letters and Science Distinguished Faculty Award for
distinguished performance in teaching and/or scholarship. He is
the only UWSP faculty member to receive a Guggenheim Foundation
Grant, and the only person in the UW System to be invited four
times to be a UW System fellow at UW-Madison’s Institute for
Research in the Humanities.
