Richard Wilson (scholar)

Professor Richard Wilson
Occupation Early modern scholar and anniversary professor at kingston university

Professor Richard Wilson (born 1950)[1] is the Sir Peter Hall Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Kingston University, London.[2]

Education and employment

Richard Wilson studied at York University (1970–5) with Philip Brockbank, C.A. Patrides and F.R. Leavis, who influenced his close reading in historical contexts. He wrote his PhD thesis under the supervision of Jacques Berthoud on Shakespeare and Renaissance perspective theory.

Taught at University of Lancaster 1978–2005:

Taught at Cardiff University 2005–2012

Taught at Kingston University 2012–

Visiting Fellowships and Professorships

Special Lectures

International Conferences

Richard Wilson has organised a series of international conferences:

Academic Advisor

Since 1999 he has been a Trustee of Shakespeare North.[12] He is Academic Advisor on its project to rebuild the Elizabethan playhouse at Prescot (Knowsley) near Liverpool.[13]

He was an academic advisor for the BBC series In Search of Shakespeare (2001).[14] He appears in the series, interviewed by Michael Wood.

Publications

Richard Wilson's publications include Will Power, Secret Shakespeare, Shakespeare in French Theory and Free Will. Influenced by French and German contemporary thought, he reads Shakespearean drama in terms of its strategic undecidability. It is his research into the conditions of this undecidability that led him to his proposition, in Secret Shakespeare, that Shakespeare's is a theatre of "resistance to the resistance."[15] 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."[16] Thus in Shakespeare in 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.[17]

Wilson is also known for research on Shakespeare's Catholic background and possible Lancashire connections. In Secret Shakespeare he argued that 'though Shakespeare was born into a Catholic world, he reacted against it',[15] but that his plays all start from the 'Bloody Question' of a test of loyalty or love.

Wilson's 2013 book Free Will: Art and Power on Shakespeare's Stage is a comprehensive rereading of the plays in terms of Shakespeare's patronage relations. It argues that the dramatist found artistic freedom by adopting an 'abject position' towards authority, and by staging 'the power of weakness'.

Associated with the British Cultural Materialist school of criticism, according to Will Power (1993) his work aims to combine 'high theory and low archives'. Wilson was described by the critic A.D. Nuttall as 'Perhaps the most brilliant of the Shakespearean Historicists'.[18]

Richard Wilson has published over sixty chapters or articles in academic journals, and is on the editorial board of the journal Shakespeare.[19]

Books

Edited volumes

Newspaper articles

Main influences

Books reviewed

References

  1. "Author (Wilson, Richard, 1950–)". Voyager. Cardiff University.
  2. "Professor Richard Wilson". Kingston University. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Shakespeare Globe Trust. "2005-6 Annual Review" (PDF). p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 July 2008.
  4. McKenzie, William; Papadopoulou, Theodora, eds. (2012). Shakespeare and I. Continuum. p. 10.
  5. Wilson, Richard (2002). "A World Elsewhere: Shakespeare's Sense of an Exit". In British Academy. Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 117: 2001 Lectures. Oxford University Press. pp. 165–199. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
  6. 6.0 6.1 "Richard Wilson: 'Shakespeare understood that every foreigner brings gifts'". The Independent. 28 April 2005. Retrieved 16 February 2012.
  7. Wilson, Richard (8 March 2012). Monstrous To Our Human Reason: Minding the gap in 'The Winter’s Tale' (Speech). The Shakespeare Institute. Stratford-upon-Avon: Backdoor Broadcasting Company.
  8. 8.0 8.1 "Lancastrian Shakespeare". Lancaster University.
  9. "Shakespeare: Violence & Terror". Renaissance Lit. 26 June 2006.
  10. "Shakespeare and Derrida". Conferences and Symposia Archive. Cardiff University.
  11. "Shakespeare and Wales". Cardiff University. 22 April 2010. Archived from the original on 20 September 2010.
  12. "The President and Patrons". Shakespeare North.
  13. "News Centre – News Centre". Cardiff.ac.uk. 9 February 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2012.The "Prescot Renaissance" webpage of Liverpool John Moores University says that their research "has also taken place in dialogue with others involved in the overall project, especially Professor Richard Wilson (Cardiff) whose influential research into Shakespeare's possible connections to Lancashire is centrally important" http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/HSS/122823.htm Retrieved 19 April 2012
  14. Wood, Michael (2003). In Search of Shakespeare. BBC Books. p. 388. ISBN 0-563-52141-4.
  15. 15.0 15.1 Wilson, Richard (2004). Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance. Manchester University Press. p. ix.
  16. Wilson, Richard (2007). "'Blood will have blood': Regime Change in Macbeth". Shakespeare Jahrbuch 143: 16 , 19.
  17. Wilson, Richard. Shakespeare in French Theory: King of Shadows. Routledge. see backmatter
  18. Nuttall, A. D. (2007). Shakespeare The Thinker. p. 18.
  19. "Taylor & Francis Journals: Welcome". Tandf.co.uk. Retrieved 16 February 2012.
  20. "Short Reviews" (PDF). English 48 (192): 203–211. 1999. doi:10.1093/english/48.192.203.
  21. Sillars, Stuart John (December 2005). "Review: Claire Asquith (2004), Shadowplay. Richard Wilson (2004), Secret Shakespeare". Nordic Journal of English Studies 4 (2): 166–168.
  22. Pye, Christopher (1 January 2009). "Shakespeare in French Theory: King of Shadows". Shakespeare Studies.
  23. Holden, Anthony (9 October 2004). "Just William". The Observer.
  24. Barton, Anne (11 May 2006). "The One and Only". The New York Review of Books 53 (8).

External links