Making Friends with Shakespeare

Originally from Montreal, Tony Dawson came to UBC in 1970, having completed his doctorate at Harvard the previous year. He has published scholarly editions of several of Shakespeare’s plays and written extensively on their performance histories, on the cultural and religious contexts of the Elizabethan theatre, and on editorial and textual theory and practice. His books include The Culture of Playgoing in Shakespeare's England (with Paul Yachnin, 2001) and Hamlet: Shakespeare in Performance (1995). He is the recipient of both a Killam teaching award and a Killam research prize at UBC, and has served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America.

Jerry Wasserman is Emeritus Professor of English and Theatre, having retired in 2016 after 44 years teaching at UBC. Jerry is also an actor and theatre critic with Lifetime Achievement awards from the Canadian Association for Theatre Research and the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Association. He is a member of the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame.

This ongoing series is offered in association with the UBC Emeritus College. Responding to the necessities of the COVID-19 pandemic we have changed our format this year to present senior UBC academics in conversation with interviewer, theatre critic, and actor Jerry Wasserman. We will hear from colleagues from several academic disciplines whose intellectual interests, personal trajectories and engagement with the university and society differ considerably. Conversations will range widely across personal experiences and academic careers. The conversations will be of interest to early-, mid-, and late- career scholars, as well as members of the general public, as they reveal the diversity and richness of academic lives and the passions that drive them. Viewers will have the opportunity to ask questions of each speaker.