By Elizabeth Howard

Episode Summary

In this conversation, Chris Thurman, a Shakespeare scholar and professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, talks with Short Fuse host Elizabeth Howard about the Bard. She poses several questions: Were the Bard’s plays part of the colonial apparatus used to impose British culture in South Africa, or did they serve as a means of liberation? How is Shakespeare regarded, discussed, and performed in a postcolonial, post-apartheid country? And what insights do translations of Shakespeare plays into at least eight of South Africa’s 12 official languages offer into the writer and his vision?

Episode Notes

South African Shakespeare scholar Chris Thurman. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Chris Thurman is Director of the Tsikinya-Chaka Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is co-editor, with Sandra Young, of Global Shakespeare and Social Injustice: Towards a Transformative Encounter (2023).

He is editor of South African Essays on ‘Universal’ Shakespeare (2014), Sport versus Art: A South African Contest (2010) and 16 volumes of the journal Shakespeare in Southern Africa. His other books are the monograph Guy Butler: Reassessing a South African Literary Life (2010); Text Bites, an anthology for high schools (2009); and two collections of arts journalism.

He is president of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa and founder of Shakespeare ZA.

The Short Fuse Podcast is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Howard. Her articles on communication and marketing have appeared in European Communications, Investor Relations, Law Firm Marketing & Profit Report, Communication World, the Strategist, and the New York Law Journal, among others. Her books include Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie (Thornwillow Press, 2011), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David Godine, 2015), and Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back (Easton Studio Press, 2016). She leads reading groups at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York. Find her on Instagram @elizh24. Learn more at Elizabeth Howard.

We are pleased to welcome Gerald Kent as the producer and editor for the Short Fuse Podcast. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, Gerald is a talented musician and audio engineer who has been releasing his own music independently since 2021. In addition to his composing he works with multiple clients in the podcasting space, from editing to full-scale production. The Short Fuse is now recording and working in Cape Town and New York.

“Artists are here to disturb the peace.” James Baldwin.

The Short Fuse is distributed through The Arts Fuse, an online journal dedicated to arts criticism and commentary.

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