Imprimis: Links and Tidbits, 24 February 2012

A few notes and points of interest from the world of Shakespeare studies this week:

• London's Globe Theatre has awarded its first PhDs to Sarah Dustagheer and Penelope Woods. These women are both friends of the ASC: Woods presented on audience studies at our 2009 Blackfriars Conference, and Dustagheer observed an Actors' Renaissance Season, giving presentations to the MBC MLitt/MFA program on the differences between playing the Globe and playing the Blackfriars Playhouse. Congratulations to them both, and to the Globe for enacting this joint degree-awarding venture with Queen Mary, University of London, and King's College London.
• The new "Shakespeare's Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500-1700" exhibit at the Folger Library challenges the notion that early modern women didn't write (or, as Virginia Woolf famously asserted, that, if they did, they must have been driven mad by the frustrations of it). The exhibit celebrates such notable female authors as Veronica Franco, Lady Anne Clifford, Lady Mary Wroth, the Mancini sisters, Aemilia Lanyer, Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre, and (my personal favorite early modern woman) Lady Mary Herbert. If you can't make it to DC to see the exhibit in person, selections from it are also available online.
• This week, the ASC welcomes alumni from Dartmouth College for a weekend of entertainment and scholarship. Peter Saccio, the Leon D. Black Professor of Shakespearean Studies at Dartmouth College, was the editor of A Mad World, My Masters for the Middleton Complete Works. Saccio gave a public lecture last night, detailing some of the textual oddities of the script and what that can mean for the stage, and will give several private lectures to the Dartmouth group throughout the weekend.
• Education Week featured an article on the challenge educators face when attempting to tie their lesson plans to Core Curriculum Standards. "Their current materials fall short, and there is a dearth of good new ones to fill the void." ASC Study Guides (now available on lulu.com!) feature not only guidelines for fulfilling Virginia's Standards of Learning, but also the U.S. Core Curriculum Standards.
  

As a final note, remember that you still have a few days to get in your nominations for the 2012 Shakespearean March Madness. I've already heard support for Hotspur, Cassius, the Duke of Cornwall, and Richard II. Pitch your pick for this no-holds-barred brawl here.