From cinema screens to stages to the halls of academia, Shakespeare is everywhere…still. But how do we recontextualise the beloved Bard for the modern day?

If you’ve ever wondered ‘How is Shakespeare still relevant?’, Fintan O’Toole and Farah Karim-Cooper are here to help figure that out. While O’Toole’s latest, Shakespeare is Hard, but so is Life, focuses on the enduring popularity of his tragedies, Karim-Cooper’s The Great White Bard tackles race, gender and otherness in Shakespeare’s famous works.

Through different lenses, both authors invite us to reckon with the discomforts of his work, confront outdated frameworks of interpretation, and find new meaning in his enduring legacy. Together, they’ll discuss Shakespeare’s popularity, his relevance, and how to read his work in a contemporary context.

Fintan O’Toole is the bestselling author of We Don’t Know Ourselves, Heroic Failure, Ship of Fools, A Traitor’s Kiss, White Savage and other acclaimed books. He is a columnist for the Irish Times and advising editor of the New York Review of Books. He has received the Silvers-Dudley Prize for Journalism, the Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize.

Farah Karim-Cooper is Professor of Shakespeare Studies, King’s College London and Director of Education (Higher Education & Research) at Shakespeare’s Globe, where she has worked for the last 20 years. Farah served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America 2021-2022 after serving 5 years on the Board of Trustees. She is the recipient of the British Shakespeare Association Fellowship Award 2023 for her contribution to Shakespeare Studies and Inclusivity.

This event will be chaired by Emer McHugh.