It’s All About Community: A Journal of the 2024 ISA Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon

The topic of the ISA Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon (23-26 July 2024) was “Shakespeare and Communities”—and what cohesive communities we were, including in-person and online participants! In February 2024, it was already impossible to acquire good seats for the production of Pericles (more about it later in this journal), and it is with the kind help of Roger Pringle (former director of the Shakespeare Centre) that I was able to secure one. Ever since March 2024, when Michael Dobson (ISC Committee) let us know that the in-person conference registration had closed (invited in-person participants were restricted to one hundred, because of the limited capacity of the Shakespeare Institute Hall), I knew that people would be delighted—more than ever—to be part of this Shakespearean community, especially after the dire years of estrangement caused by the pandemic and its aftermath. When I arrived at Heathrow, despite the relative unpleasantness caused by the delay of the flight from Bucharest to London, I felt I was already at home, after six years of absence. Even the quizzical Polish-British driver, who took me to Stratford-upon-Avon, was a bonus to my positive state of mind, as our conversation had a tinge of wit and whimsical humour similar to those ascribed to the gravediggers in Hamlet.

At the in-person registration and drinks hosted in the Shakespeare Institute Gardens, it was a privilege to see lifelong friends (Werner Brönnimann, Nicoleta Cinpoeş, Hardy Cook, Michael Dobson, Manfred Draut, Paul Edmonsdon, Dominique Goy Blanquet, Ina Habermann, Rui Carvalho Homem, Lisa Hopkins,…