{"id":907,"date":"2025-05-06T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T08:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/?p=907"},"modified":"2026-03-03T16:48:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T15:48:46","slug":"call-for-papers-shakespeare-in-a-polarized-world-wbo-universite-libre-de-bruxelles-6-9-march-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/news-en\/2025\/05\/06\/907\/","title":{"rendered":"SHAKESPEARE IN A POLARIZED WORLD – WBO, Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles 6 – 9 March 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Now is the winter of our discontent’<\/em>\u00a0(Richard III, Act I, Scene 1).<\/p>\n

Shakespeare\u2019s works, with their intricate political tensions, power struggles, religious fractures, and profound ethical dilemmas, offer a timeless reflection on the nature of leadership and the vulnerabilities of societies. They resonate with unsettling clarity in our own era, marked by deepening polarization and cultural fragmentation. Far from belonging solely to the past, Shakespeare\u2019s plays continue to illuminate the challenges of the present, making them more relevant than ever.<\/p>\n

It is in this context\u2014at a moment when political, social, and cultural divisions are reaching unprecedented levels\u2014that Waseda University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham\u2019s Shakespeare Institute and the Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles, is hosting this international conference. Our shared aim is to explore the role and raison d\u2019\u00eatre of literature and the arts in a world increasingly defined by division.<\/p>\n

The conference focuses on how Shakespeare\u2019s works, along with their many interpretations and creative reimaginings, might help us understand and perhaps mitigate the political and social fractures that threaten the foundations of democratic societies and a rules\u2011based international order.<\/p>\n

Our point of departure is the idea that literary texts function as \u201cnarratives which connect the present with the past, on the one hand, and with utopian futures, on the other,\u201d thereby fostering human solidarity. Throughout these sessions, we will seek to identify the shared values and common ground embedded in Shakespeare\u2019s plays\u2014and in the diverse interpretations they have inspired across cultures and centuries\u2014that may offer pathways toward overcoming today\u2019s polarization.<\/p>\n

Over the coming days, we invite you to reflect, debate, and exchange ideas on how Shakespeare\u2019s works\u2014through their complexity, their humanity, and their capacity to speak across time\u2014may help us imagine more cohesive, more inclusive futures..<\/p>\n

PROGRAMME<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

SPEAKERS’ BIOS & ABSTRACTS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

CONTACT<\/strong>:\u00a0 jean-louis.moortgat@ulb.be<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘Now is the winter of our discontent’\u00a0(Richard III, Act I, Scene 1). Shakespeare\u2019s works, with their intricate political tensions, power struggles, religious fractures, and profound ethical dilemmas, offer a timeless reflection on the nature of leadership and the vulnerabilities of societies. They resonate with unsettling clarity in our own era, marked by deepening polarization and cultural fragmentation. Far from belonging solely to the past, Shakespeare\u2019s plays continue to illuminate the challenges of the present, making them more relevant than ever. It is in this context\u2014at a moment when political, social, and cultural divisions are reaching unprecedented levels\u2014that Waseda University, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham\u2019s Shakespeare Institute and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[82,94],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-events-en","tag-general-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.waseda.jp\/inst\/brussels-office\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}