Day: April 23, 2021

Come Celebrate Shakespeare at the University Libraries

To mark the 457th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, University Libraries highlights resources focused on one of the world’s greatest playwrights.

If you would like to watch productions of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, please check out the BBC Shakespeare Plays. This collection features 37 plays produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The New Oxford Shakespeare presents an entirely new consideration of all of Shakespeare’s works, edited from first principles from the original texts themselves, and drawing on the latest textual and theatrical scholarship. The Oxford Scholarly Editions Online brings the content of all three print volumes together as one powerful resource.

Additionally, University Libraries subscribes to some of the top Shakespeare studies journals including: Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quarterly and Shakespeare Studies. Shakespeare is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the study of Shakespeare. It publishes articles on criticism, performance, and the history of Shakespeare and his works. Shakespeare Quarterly is peer-reviewed journal published for the Folger Shakespeare Library by the Oxford University Press. The journal publishes original works related to all aspects of Shakespeare studies. Shakespeare Studies is a peer-reviewed volume published annually with a focus on Shakespeare studies and theatre. The journal features the work of performance scholars, literary critics, and cultural historians.

Lastly, the Library provides access to subscription-based or open-access scholarly resources such as Folgerpedia, Open-Source Shakespeare, JSTOR Understanding Shakespeare, and Shakespeare in the Digital Age from the University of Notre Dame.

Ophelia Master’s Thesis Gets 2000 Hits: Mystery Solved?

The master’s thesis: Ophelia’s Mistreatment and Ignored Monastic Opportunities by Seton Hall graduate Danielle Tovsen has been downloaded nearly 2000 times since the end of 2017. Tovsen graduated from Seton Hall in 2010 with an MA in English. She argues in her thesis “that Ophelia could have saved her own life if she had left home and fled to a nunnery; the treatment she received from Laertes and Polonius was worse than Hamlet’s treatment of her throughout the play.”

Dr. Marta Deyrup, Outreach and Humanities Librarian at University Libraries, discovered the thesis while doing research on Shakespeare in the Seton Hall eRepository. The high number of downloads impressed Dr. Deyrup, which led her to contact Dr. Chrysanthy Grieco, the advisor on the thesis and both a former dean of University Libraries and chair of the English Department. Dr. Grieco could not answer why it has had close to 2000 hits, but she did say “that’s an astounding number for an MA paper.” She also guessed “that those interested in feminist texts—though I doubt this is one—found some yeast for their bread” in Tovsen’s work.

Another interesting aspect of the mystery is the location of the downloads. A good number of the downloads were from educational institutions such as the Michigan Statewide Educational Network and Orange County Department of Education. Dr. Deyrup thinks this might indicate the thesis is being used to support the research of middle and high school students.

Accessibility by WAH