Conferences
Literary Re/Membrance
Graduate English Society (GES) Conference
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Conron Hall, University College 3110, Western University
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University
Literary Re/Membrance examined memory not as a passive inheritance of the past, but as an active, contested, and often radical practice shaped by histories of colonial violence. Bringing together critical scholarship and creative-critical practice, the conference explored re/membrance as a restorative and transformative process that confronts histories of erasure, resurgence, connection, and reworlding.
Hosted by the Western Graduate English Society (GES) and co-sponsored by the Department of English and Writing Studies (Visiting Speaker's Fund) and the Centre for Theory and Criticism. Additional support provided by the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, the School of Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities (SASAH), Faculty of Arts and Humanities as well as SOGS Academic Joint Fund.
View the Literary Re/Membrance conference program (PDF) 
Shakespeare After Werstine: Editing Shakespeare Now
May 1-3, 2025
King's University College
Speakers: Freya Abbas, Brandi K. Adams, Heidi Craig, Alan Galey, Ashley Howard, Janelle Jenstad, Eric Johnson, Ian Lancashire, Zachary Lesser, James J. Marino, Sonia Massai, Rebecca Niles, James Purkis, Ian Rae, Eric Rasmussen, Blake Robertson, Scott Schofield, Robert Stagg, M. L. Stapleton, Misha Teramura, Jessica Tooker and Katayoun Torabi
Shakespeare After Werstine addressed the most urgent questions of editorial practice facing Shakespeare scholars today and celebrated the career of Distinguished University Professor Paul Werstine. Over the past three decades, through the work of Paul Werstine and other textual scholars, assumptions and practices that dominated twentieth-century editing have been overturned. Editors and textual theorists now work at a moment of uncertainty that demands new theories and practices for establishing and presenting Shakespeare's text. Paper sessions collectively addressed three key current challenges. First, how may textual and documentary evidence bear on editorial decision-making? Second, how may new editions best serve a diverse modern readership? Papers explored, for example, how obligations to equity and diversity may be better met through editorial strategies such as paratextual materials, decisions about the playtext, and innovative forms of annotation. Third, papers also examined how accessibility and the possibilities for interactivity that come with digital publication have transformed the editor's work, the face of the edition, and concepts of what constitutes a work and a canon.
Captioned recordings of the paper presentations were posted online after the event.
This conference was made possible through financial and in-kind support provided by: English and Writing Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, King’s University College, The Medieval Seminar, Performance Studies Research Group, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Western Early Modern Studies.
View the Shakespeare After Werstine: Editing Shakespeare Now program (PDF)
