Humanities and Arts Interest Group (HAIG) Lecture
This talk is scheduled as part of the HAIG Lecture Series.
“What Gender, Spirit? Shakespeare’s Ariel, Cultural Authority, and Social Change in Post-Communist Bulgaria.” Kirilka (Katy) Stavreva, Richard and Norma Small Distinguished Professor of English and Director, Center for the Literary Arts.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bulgarian theatre quickly included Shakespeare’s Tempest in its artistic vocabulary of cultural change. This talk explores choices about staging the gender of Ariel, the spirit of the magic island where the action unfolds. Bulgarian Ariels of the new century range from melancholically feminine to exuberantly delighting in gender fluidity and multiplicity – choices that dramatize the elusiveness and resurgent hope for new cultural narratives.
