Muhlenberg Lecture 2019

Pulitzer Prize winner and world-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor of Humanities at Harvard University, will give this year’s Muhlenberg Lecture. Based on his recent book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Power (2018), his talk entitled

„Shakespeare, Politics, and Power“

will explore various aspects of tyranny in Shakespeare’s plays:

“Throughout his career, William Shakespeare returned again and again to questions that haunted him: how it is possible for seemingly stable societies to fall into the hands of disastrous leaders? Why do communities of free men and women, people who have every reason to look out for their own interests, succumb to those who have no regard for the common good? Shakespeare had to be careful: in his world, as in modern totalitarian states, there was no freedom of expression. But he developed exceptional skills at oblique politics, and the answers he proposed have exceptional relevance to our own times” (Greenblatt).

The event begins at 7.00 pm (Aula, Löwengebäude).

Everybody interested in the topic is welcome to attend the lecture.