Facing Europe in Crisis: Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges

Facing Europe in Crisis. Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges focuses on what the early modern period tells us about contemporary crises and what these, in turn, may bring to the understanding of the past. While readings of the past allow us to understand the present (Orszulak and Romanowska, 2021), the present also brings new insights into the early modern period. The title Facing Europe in Crisis. Shakespeare’s World and Present Challenges has been carefully chosen. The participants in the European programme avoided using the term “solving” and agreed that the word “facing” would better suggest the complexities of crises and the need to examine and understand them with the lucidity demanded by scientific research. Crisis seems to be inherent in humanity, a permanent state everyone should face with the awareness that in the solutions to one crisis lie the seeds of the next. Crisis is inscribed in seriality. That is what the cycle of Shakespeare’s history plays reveals. His theatre feeds on crisis, but the Shakespearean theatrical experience also allows its audiences and participants to tackle crisis in all its ambivalence. Shakespeare’s theatre is an invitation to tackle crises of all times and to think about them, being aware that, as Hamlet notes (2.2.239-40) “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.