Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

It was a great pleasure to attend the April 2026 conference of the Shakespeare Association of America in Denver, Colorado, and to participate in a 9 am Thursday seminar on April 2 titled “Shakespeare and the Forms of Religion,” along with an exceptional group of scholars. These included (top, left-to-right): Sean M. Benson (University of Mary Hardin-Baylor), who wrote about holy fools in a number of Shakespeare’s comedies, drawing on Erasmus and his idea of folly; James E. Berg (Middlebury College), who wrote about the Buddhist idea of “no mind” as a lens through which to view Romeo and Juliet; Paul Adrian Fried (yours truly), on often-overlooked biblical allusions or plot echoes in 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘵 and their implications for expanding a taxonomy of such references; and (bottom, left-to-right): Trina Hyun (SUNY University at Buffalo), who wrote about Golding’s (mis-?) translation of Ovid and the idea of grace in Antony and Cleopatra; Joseph Navitsky (Champlain College, Saint-Lambert), wh...

Next week I will be part of a seminar at a conference: the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America, which will be held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.[1] I’ve attended before: 2018: I attended the 2018 meeting in Los Angeles, California, where I met Gayle Gaskill, editor of the New Kitteridge edition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, as well as other scholars, young and old, with interesting tales to tell.[2] Gayle and I went on to present papers at the SCSC conference in the fall of 2018.[3] 2020: I was part of a seminar on “Mind, Cognition, and Affect” in 2020,[4] held on Zoom due to the pandemic. My paper was about labors of gratitude and regret in Hamlet, exploring how these emotions were instrumental in character arcs. See my series on that topic. [5] 2023: This year, I am taking part in the seminar, “Reconsidering Science and Religion,” on Thursday, 30 March, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. CST. My paper is called “Kuhnian Paradigm Shifts and Emmaus Untet...

Favorite experiences at SAA 2018 Some of my favorite experiences at the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) conference in Los Angeles included meeting other attendees, either at seminars, or by chance. On the ride from the airport on Wednesday, I met Jim Schiffer of SUNY, who is working on the Twelfth Night variorum project, which may be published entirely online. There was also a wonderfully moderated seminar on "Thinking Theology with Shakespeare." Jay Zyck of UMass-Dartmouth did an excellent job, and the abstracts of the papers hinted at may more insights and riches. Auditors only experienced the tip of the iceberg. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ At #Shax2018 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. today, an amazing and most effectively moderated seminar. Jay was obviously very thorough in his reading of all the papers, noticed common themes, elicited good questions from all presenters beforehand, so they were all well-prepared. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A common observation: "This was one of the best-mo...