Shakespeare 2026: Relevance, resilience and no more Hamlet

Speaker: Emma Smith

Emma Smith of the University of Oxford reviews some of the ways that Shakespeare has been found to be a useful or relevant resource at different historical moments. While some periods and places have found particular go-to plays (Troilus and Cressida during the Vietnam War, for instance, or Julius Caesar during the first Trump presidency), Hamlet has seemed to be a perennial.

During this talk, Emma will be rude about Hamlet and propose an alternative play for our attention in the early 21st century. This play, she’ll argue, can speak to our moment, reflect some of our concerns, and uses its fictions for good. You’ll have to come to the talk to find out which play - and see whether you agree.

The Annual Distinguished Patrides Lecture

The Annual Distinguished Patrides Lecture is a lecture series that began in 1988 as a memorial to C A (Dinos) Patrides, a phenomenal scholar of renaissance literature, who worked at the University of York from 1964 to 1979, in the newly-founded Department of English and Related Literature. The series was intended to run for a decade but is still going strong some 35 years later and has featured many internationally recognised figures.

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Host or Publisher York Festival of Ideas