Shakespeare Studies at SUU
Shakespeare Studies at Southern Utah University engages in academic research, promotes literary and production dramaturgy, and offers programming focused on Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This program explores Shakespeare’s work through theatre, literature, history, politics, art and music history, philosophy, and language.
The Wooden O Symposium The Journal of the Wooden O Shakespeare Studies Minor
The Wooden O Symposium
The Wooden O Symposium is a cross-disciplinary conference exploring Shakespeare's plays, era, and impact on art and culture to the present. Scholars from all disciplines are encouraged to submit papers that offer insights and new ideas springing from Shakespeare, broadly construed. Shakespeare's life, time period, work, and impact continue to serve as a source of inspiration and curiosity from which we can explore the nature of multiple cultures.
The Symposium is hosted by Southern Utah University and the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Scholars attending the conference will have the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in research, text, and performance in one of the most beautiful natural settings in the western United States.
For further information, email the conference co-organizers, Scott Knowles (scottknowles@suu.edu) or Jessica Tvordi (tvordi@suu.edu).
2026 Wooden O Symposium
The 2026 Wooden O Symposium will be held in Cedar City, Utah, August 3-5, 2026.
2026 Keynote Speaker: Daniel Vitkus
Shakespeare's Skull: Materiality, Death, and Doubt in Hamlet
Daniel Vitkus holds the Rebeca Hickel Endowed Chair in Early Modern Literature at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Turning Turk: English Theater and the Multicultural Mediterranean, 1570-1630 and of numerous articles and book chapters on Shakespeare, English Renaissance drama, and the cultural history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Vitkus has edited Three Turk Plays from Early Modern England (Columbia UP) and Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (Columbia UP). His latest book, co-authored with Jyotsna Singh, is called A Contextual Companion to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra: History, Myth, Gender, published by Edinburgh University Press in February of 2026. He is currently working on a book to be titled Solarpunk Shakespeare: Political Ecology, Materialism, and the Human. His keynote lecture is part of that project.
The Journal of the Wooden O
The Journal of the Wooden O is a peer-reviewed, cross-disciplinary, scholarly publication dedicated to Shakespeare studies. It is published annually by the Southern Utah University Press in cooperation with the Gerald R. Sherratt Library and the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
The Journal of the Wooden O publishes papers on any topic related to Shakespeare including Shakespearean texts, Shakespeare in performance, the adaptation of Shakespeare's works (film, fiction, and visual and performing arts), early modern English culture and history, and Shakespeare's contemporaries. Articles from the Journal of the Wooden O are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and are available in full text through the World Shakespeare Bibliography, EBSCO's Academic Search Ultimate, and the International Bibliography of Theatre and Dance.
Shakespeare Studies Minor
The Minor in Shakespeare Studies fosters SUU’s exploration of Shakespeare and Renaissance Studies across multiple disciplines. Students study Shakespeare’s work by exploring the disciplines of theatre, literature, and history to understand the plays in relation to their culture, both then and now. Courses in literature/script analysis, early modern history, literary history specific to period, and acting styles provide the core of required and elective offerings, with special emphasis on the study of dramaturgy linking literary theory to practical work.
Want to become a Shakespeare Studies Minor? Talk with your Advisor to get that officially declared.
For more information about Shakespeare Studies at SUU and the Shakespeare Studies minor, contact Dr. Jessica Tvordi (tvordi@suu.edu) or Dr. Scott Knowles (scottknowles@suu.edu).