Prof Chris Thurman delivers his inaugural lecture

There have been many prominent Africans over the years who have reportedly made statements that Julius Caesar is Shakespeare’s African play. But is it really? And did those prominent Africans really make those statements?

“While this assertion enables some appealing comparisons and analogies, it also reinforces certain essentialist claims about ‘Africa’,” says the pamphlet advertising the lecture.

If this is the type of literary interrogation that fascinates you, you’ll love Professor Chris Thurman’s inaugural lecture titled “A Play in South Africa: Towards a translation history of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar”. A few CN&CO team mates and friends attended the lecture at Wits University on 17 May 2022 to congratulate Chris on his professorship and spend a pleasant hour listening to the prof unpacking the question.

Followers of the CN&CO blog might remember Chris in his role as president of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa. CN&CO provided some assistance to the society pre-Covid, and followed Chris and his team’s efforts to keep Shakespeare alive during lockdown with the #lockdownshakespeare initiative.

In his inaugural lecture, Chris called on scholars to map out “a history of translations of the play into African languages.” Doing so, he says, “reveals a story that is partly pan-African, but also demands attention to specific times and places, as well as to the idiosyncrasies of particular translators.”

Wanna hear more? Watch the recording of the lecture below: