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Wednesday, 8 June 2016Venue: Senate House Library, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HUMarking 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare, the Institute of Modern Languages Research (IMLR), London and Senate House Library in association with the Institut français du Royaume-Uni and Culturethèque, are organising a one-day conference.With Shakespeare’s works being regarded (and thrust down people’s throats) as ‘universal classics’, it is perhaps not surprising that they have so often been staged across the Channel. The Bard is, in fact, the writer whose works are most frequently performed in France. Indeed, despite a fraught history owing to neo-classical hang-ups, today at least, ‘la langue de Molière’ regularly plays host to ‘la langue de Shakespeare’.We invite proposals for 20 minute papers that look at commentaries, translations, adaptations and productions of Shakespeare’s works in French contexts from the 17th century to the present day.Topics may include but are not limited to Voltaire’s dubious attitude towards Shakespeare, Jean-François Ducis’s adaptations (including Macbeth minus the witches), Victor and François-Victor Hugo’s respective interests in the Bard, Peter and Irina Brook’s productions of his plays, Ariane Mnouchkine’s Les Shakespeare and very recent adaptations such as Vincent Macaigne’s Au moins j’aurai laisse un beau cadavre, in which Elsinore is turned into a blood-soaked bouncy castle.Confirmed keynote speakers include: Florence March and Nathalie Vienne-Guérin (Université Paul Valéry).Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words, together with a brief biography (50 words) by 5 April 2016 to the convenor Dominic Glynn (IMLR, London) dominic.glynn@sas.ac.uk. Decisions will be made by 12 April 2016.