Richard Wilson (scholar)
Encyclopedia
Professor Richard Wilson (born 1950) is a British literary critic and Shakespeare scholar teaching at Cardiff University
.
(1970-5) with Philip Brockbank and F.R. Leavis, who influenced his close reading in historical contexts. He wrote his Ph.D thesis on Shakespeare and Renaissance perspective.
Taught at University of Lancaster 1978-2005:
Taught at Cardiff University
2006-
Visiting Fellowships
Special Lectures
International Conferences
Richard Wilson has organised several international conferences:
Academic Advisor
Since 1999 he has been a Trustee of Northern Shakespeare. He is Academic Advisor on its project to rebuild the Elizabethan playhouse at Prescot (Knowsley) near Liverpool.
He was an Academic Advisor for the BBC series In Search of Shakespeare (2001). He appears in the series, interviewed by Michael Wood.
Ultimately, what this theatre of shadows stages is "the instability of the opposition between authorized and unauthorized violence" and "the recognition of the reversibility of monsters and martyrs, terrorists and torturers, or artists and assassins." Thus in Shakespeare and French Theory he argues that while for Anglo-Saxon culture Shakespeare is a man of the monarchy, in France he has always been the man of the mob. He is also known for research on Shakespeare's Catholic background and possible Lancashire connections.
He argued that 'though Shakespeare was born into a Catholic world, he reacted against it', but that his plays all start from the 'Bloody Question' of a test of love or loyalty.
Associated with the British Cultural Materialist
school of criticism, according to Will Power (1993) his work aims to combine 'high theory and low archives'. He has been described by A.D. Nuttall
as 'Perhaps the most brilliant of the Shakespearean Historicists'.
Richard Wilson has published numerous articles in academic journals, and is on the editorial board of the journal, Shakespeare.
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
.
Education and Employment
Richard Wilson studied at York UniversityYork University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
(1970-5) with Philip Brockbank and F.R. Leavis, who influenced his close reading in historical contexts. He wrote his Ph.D thesis on Shakespeare and Renaissance perspective.
Taught at University of Lancaster 1978-2005:
- Lecturer in English Literature, 1978
- Reader in Renaissance Studies, 1993
- Professor of Renaissance Studies, 1994
- Director of the celebrated Lancaster Shakespeare Programme, 1995–2005
Taught at Cardiff University
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
2006-
Visiting Fellowships
- Visiting Fellow, Shakespeare InstituteShakespeare InstituteThe Shakespeare Institute is a centre for postgraduate study dedicated to the study of William Shakespeare and the literature of the English Renaissance. It is part of the University of Birmingham, and is located in Stratford-upon-Avon....
, University of BirminghamUniversity of BirminghamThe University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, 1991-2 - Visiting Professor, University of Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle), 2001-2
- 2006 Fellow, Shakespeare's GlobeShakespeare's GlobeShakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, located on the south bank of the River Thames, but destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt 1614 then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic best guess, based...
, London - Visiting Professor, University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne), 2011-12
Special Lectures
- 2001 British Academy Shakespeare Annual Lecture on the theme of exile: 'A World Elsewhere: Shakespeare's Sense of an Exit'
- 2004 Rutherford Lecture at the University of KentUniversity of KentThe University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...
: 'Shakespeare in Hate: Performing the Virgin Queen'
- 2005 Stachniewski Lecture at Manchester University: 'Making Men of Monsters: Shakespeare in the company of strangers'
- 2006 Shakespeare's Globe Fellowship Lecture, 'Fools of Time: Shakespeare and the Martyrs', on Shakespeare and the suicide-bombers
International Conferences
Richard Wilson has organised several international conferences:
- 'Lancastrian Shakespeare' (Shakespeare and Catholicism) at Lancaster University and Hoghton Tower, Lancashire, 1999
- 'The Return of the Author', Lancaster Castle 2004
- Shakespeare: Violence & Terror, The Globe, 2006
- 'Shakespeare and Derrida', Cardiff University, 2007
- 'Shakespeare and Wales', Cardiff University, 2010
Academic Advisor
Since 1999 he has been a Trustee of Northern Shakespeare. He is Academic Advisor on its project to rebuild the Elizabethan playhouse at Prescot (Knowsley) near Liverpool.
He was an Academic Advisor for the BBC series In Search of Shakespeare (2001). He appears in the series, interviewed by Michael Wood.
Publications
His publications include Will Power, Secret Shakespeare and Shakespeare in French Theory. Influenced by French and German contemporary thought, Wilson reads Shakespearean drama in terms of its undecidability. It is this fundamental undecidability that led him to his famous proposition, in Secret Shakespeare, that Shakespeare's is a theatre of "resistance to the resistance."Ultimately, what this theatre of shadows stages is "the instability of the opposition between authorized and unauthorized violence" and "the recognition of the reversibility of monsters and martyrs, terrorists and torturers, or artists and assassins." Thus in Shakespeare and French Theory he argues that while for Anglo-Saxon culture Shakespeare is a man of the monarchy, in France he has always been the man of the mob. He is also known for research on Shakespeare's Catholic background and possible Lancashire connections.
He argued that 'though Shakespeare was born into a Catholic world, he reacted against it', but that his plays all start from the 'Bloody Question' of a test of love or loyalty.
Associated with the British Cultural Materialist
Cultural materialism
The term Cultural materialism refers to two separate scholarly endeavours:* Cultural materialism — an anthropological research paradigm championed most notably by Marvin Harris....
school of criticism, according to Will Power (1993) his work aims to combine 'high theory and low archives'. He has been described by A.D. Nuttall
Anthony Nuttall
Anthony David Nuttall was an English literary critic and academic.Nuttall was educated at Hereford Cathedral School, Watford Grammar School for Boys and Merton College, Oxford,where he studied both Classical Moderations and English Literature...
as 'Perhaps the most brilliant of the Shakespearean Historicists'.
Richard Wilson has published numerous articles in academic journals, and is on the editorial board of the journal, Shakespeare.
Books
- Shakespeare: 'Julius Caesar (1992) ISBN 978-0-1407-7265-4
- Will Power: Essays on Shakespearean Authority (1993) ISBN 978-0-8143-2492-9
- Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance (2004) ISBN 978-07190-7025-9
- Shakespeare in French Theory: King of Shadows (2006) ISBN 978-0-415-42165-2
Edited Volumes
- New Historicism and Renaissance Drama (with Richard Dutton, 1992) ISBN 978-0-5820-4554-5
- Christopher Marlowe (1999) ISBN 978-0-5820-4554-5
- New Casebooks: Julius Caesar (2001) ISBN 978-0-333-75467-2
- Region, Religion and Patronage (with Richard Dutton and Alison Findlay) (2004) ISBN 978-0-7190-6369-5
- Theatre and Religion (with Richard Dutton and Alison Findlay) (2004) ISBN 978-0-7190-6363-3
- Shakespeare's Book: Essays in Reading, Writing and Reception (with Richard Meek and Jane Rickard) (2008) ISBN 978-0-7190-7905-4
Newspaper Articles
- Times Literary Supplement, 19.12.1997 - 'Shakespeare and the Jesuits'
- The Independent, 28.04.2005 - 'Shakespeare understood that every foreigner brings gifts'
Main Influences
- Cultural MaterialismCultural materialism (cultural studies)Cultural materialism in literary theory and cultural studies traces its origin to the work of the left-wing literary critic Raymond Williams. Cultural materialism makes analysis based in critical theory, in the tradition of the Frankfurt School....
- New HistoricismNew HistoricismNew Historicism is a school of literary theory, grounded in critical theory, that developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s....
- Stephen GreenblattStephen GreenblattStephen Jay Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.Greenblatt is regarded by many as one of the founders of New Historicism, a set of critical practices that he often refers to as "cultural poetics"; his works have been influential since the early 1980s when he introduced the term...
- F.R. Leavis
- Jacques DerridaJacques DerridaJacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
- Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
- Walter BenjaminWalter BenjaminWalter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...
- Carl SchmittCarl SchmittCarl Schmitt was a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, and professor of law.Schmitt published several essays, influential in the 20th century and beyond, on the mentalities that surround the effective wielding of political power...
Books Reviewed
- Stuart Sillars, "Review: Claire Asquith (2004), Shadowplay. Richard Wilson (2004), Secret Shakespeare", NJES, (Dec 2005) 4.2..
- The Free Library - Review of Shakespeare in French Theory by Christopher Pye (January 2009)
- The Observer - Joint review of Richard Wilson's Secret Shakespeare and Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World (October 2004)
- Peter Holland, 'Mystery Man', New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
, December 167 2004, 34-8