In March, Dr Victoria Bladen (Lecturer in English Literature, SCA) gave a Masterclass on Creative Shakespeares: Scaffolding Techniques and Creative Approaches in Literature and Adaptation to students at the University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice. The class comprised a lecture on methodology, on using scaffolding techniques to break literary research projects into small steps, followed by a creativity workshop in which Victoria shared a creative project, an artist’s book made from nautical charts inspired by The Tempest. The students, in a course on Literature and Ecology convened by Prof Shaul Bassi, will be undertaking similar projects, creating artists’ books inspired by The Tempest, which will form part of a special exhibition on one of the Venetian islands.
While in Venice, Victoria also presented a paper on an early screen adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a conference on Literature and Film in the Early Sound Era and Beyond: International Perspectives on Adaptation 1927-1939. The trip was also an opportunity for a meeting with Assoc Prof Sidia Fiorato (University of Verona), co-organiser of the Shakespeare summer school to take place at the University of Verona in July 2025, at which Victoria will be one of the plenary speakers, and in which several UQ students and alumni will be participating in Tricks of Desire: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen.
The travel was supported and facilitated by funding through SCA’s Teaching Impact Support Fund.
Masterclass, University of Ca’ Foscari, Venice.
Dr Victoria Bladen's publications include The Tree of Life and Arboreal Aesthetics in Early Modern Literature (Routledge, 2022); seven Shakespearean text guides in the Insight Publications (Melbourne) series, and nine co-edited volumes including Continuity and Change in Screen Shakespeare(s) (Anglistica, special issue, 2024), Shakespeare on Screen: Romeo and Juliet (Cambridge UP, 2023), and Onscreen Allusions to Shakespeare (Palgrave, 2022).
