This Month

Synopsis:
This talk tells the story of London fairs on the one hand, and theatre on the other, in the time of Shakespeare. It focuses on two fairs -- Bartholomew Fair and Southwark Fair – and on moments in the plays of Shakespeare that arise from fairground activity. Considering performing monkeys, magic tricks and puppet shows on the one hand, and looking at plays including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest on the other (quotations are explained in context, so no expertise in these plays is required), it reveals how London fairs and theatre were interdependent in ways that are thought-provoking and, sometimes, hilarious.

Biographical Notes:
Tiffany Stern is Professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, having previously been Professor of Early Modern Drama at the University of Oxford. She has published thirteen books and editions on 16th to 18th century dramatic literature, book history, theatre history, editing and Shakespeare, including Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan (2000), Making Shakespeare (2004), [with Simon Palfrey] Shakespeare in Parts (2007), Documents of Early Modern Performance (2009), and Shakespeare, Malone and the Problems of Chronology (2023). She is the General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature (16th century; with Stephen Greenblatt), and Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series (with Peter Holland and Zachary Lesser). She was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2019.

Coming up...

Guided tours devoted to Mark Twain

by Heidelberg's Association of Tour Guides

Topic:  "Mark Twain in Heidelberg"

Dates: 

• Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 3 p.m. (in German language)

• Saturday May 18, 2024 at 3 p.m. (in English Language)

Where?  Heidelberg, at the Lion Fountain on University Square (meeting point, with a bus stop directly across from the fountain)

Please call: 06221-436880 or 0177-272-3562 if you wish to attend either tour.  

The length of the tour, which takes place within the Old Town, is 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and the cost is € 12.00 for adults, € 9.00 for students or pupils. A surcharge will be added should it be possible to enter the Student Prison and the ancient Alte Aula lecture hall; otherwise, the two institutions are explained and shown from without. 

Each year, Heidelberg's Association of Tour Guides presents to the public a theme tour devoted to Mark Twain, who spent three summer months in Heidelberg in 1878 and wrote "A Tramp Abroad," a book that was to link his name to Heidelberg forever. 

Beginning at the Student Prison and the Alte Aula of Heidelberg University, we trace the footsteps of Mark Twain as described in his humorous book, "A Tramp Abroad." Mark Twain enriched Heidelberg's image worldwide as a multifaceted city of culture, thus contributing to its becoming some 140 years later Germany's first "UNESCO City of Literature".

Biographical Notes:
Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance English journalist, specialising in technology. He regularly contributes to the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, WIRED, Economist, Guardian, New Scientist and Newsweek, and appears on the BBC, Sky News, CNN, Al Jazeera, Times Radio and other TV channels and radio stations.
Chris is author of YouTubers: How YouTube Shook Up TV and Created a New Generation of Stars (2019, Canbury Press), and TikTok Boom: China’s Dynamite App and the Superpower Race for Social Media (2021, Canbury Press) – the first popular book on TikTok. He wrote The History of the Internet in Byte-Sized Chunks (2023, Michael O’Mara Books), and is the author of How AI Ate The World (2024, Canbury Press).

Synopsis:
Artificial intelligence will shake up our lives as thoroughly as the arrival of the internet. And tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker explores in the laboratories of the Silicon Valley innovators making rapid advances in ‘large language models’ of machine learning. He meets the insiders at Google and OpenAI who built Gemini and ChatGPT and reveals the extraordinary plans they have for them.
Along the way, he explores AI’s dark side by talking to workers who have lost their jobs to bots and engages with futurologists worried that a man-made super-intelligence could threaten humankind. He answers critical questions about the AI revolution, such as what humanity might be jeopardising; the professions that will win and lose; and whether the existential threat that technologists Elon Musk and Sam Altman are warning about is realistic – or a smokescreen to divert attention away from their growing power.

Floral tributes in Green Park, London

all pictures by Nichola Hayton MBE

The album can also be found here..

Individual tributes

Cinemas are open again

Please see the website of Gloria, Gloriette and Die Kamera