Date: Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Time: 12pm – 7pm

Co-Sponsors: Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry: A Grinnell College/University of Iowa Partnership, the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and Main Library Shakespeare Organizing Committee

12:00 – 7:00 Play the Knave Video Game

Choose your scene, your actor/avatar, your set—and strike the pose for Shakespeare Karaoke!

Location: Main Library Commons

(All are welcome—no registration required)

University of California-Davis English professor Gina Bloom and her collaborators created the Play the Knave video game to welcome audiences of all ages into the world of Shakespeare’s plays. You can play the game in the University of Iowa Library Commons during the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, September 7. Choose your avatar, design a virtual production, and perform one of 30 scenes from your favorite Shakespeare play, karaoke-style. Instructors—send your classes. Students, come with a few friends. Everyone is welcome as actors or spectators. See the game in action in this news video from the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36076442

5:00-6:30 Public Talk: “Videogame Shakespeare: Collaboration and Creativity in Play the Knave” 

Location: 105 English-Philosophy Building

Professor Gina Bloom will give a public lecture that speaks to general audiences, but is especially addressed to high school, middle school teachers, and college instructors interested in interactive video gaming pedagogy. The talk discusses the educational aims of Play the Knave and presents the game as a successful case study for integrating the humanities and the arts into STEAM initiatives. Bloom’s research ranges across Shakespeare, theater history, performance studies, and digital arts and humanities.

Presenter Bio:

Gina Bloom is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Voice in Motion: Staging Gender, Shaping Sound in Early Modern England (U Penn Press, Material Texts series), which received the Best Book of the Year award in 2008 from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women. She has published over a dozen articles on early modern drama, theater history, and performance studies as well as a set of essays on A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Folger Luminary Media iPad edition of the play. Bloom was recently elected as a Trustee to the Shakespeare Association of America and is a member of the executive committee for the Modern Language Association’s Shakespeare Forum. Current print projects include a monograph entitled “Gaming Theater:  Interactive Play before Digital Media” and a co-edited collection (with Tom Bishop and Erika Lin) on games and early modern drama. Bloom is also the Project Director for Play the Knave, a 3D motion-capture video game about Shakespeare performance that was recently featured on BBC News. Professor Bloom formerly taught in the English Department of the University of Iowa.

http://english.ucdavis.edu/people/gbloom