An image from Dr. Robert Sawyer's visits to Spain.
JOHNSON CITY – Working with 12 other researchers led by Dr. Clare Calvo of the University of Murcia, Spain, Dr. Robert Sawyer of East Tennessee State University's Department of Literature and Language has been involved with a group award from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ministry of Science and Innovation) in Madrid, Spain.
The three-year grant, which ends this year, awarded 105,000 Euros or $140,000 for a project entitled "Cultures of Commemoration II: Remembering Shakespeare."
Meeting regularly in Europe and the U.S., the group has published a number of essays in various publications, including a special issue of the journal Critical Survey in late 2010. Sawyer's essay, "From Jubilee to Gala: Remembrance and Ritual Commemoration," was part of that collection.
Most recently, the researchers met in 2012 at the 23rd annual Spanish and Portuguese Society for English Renaissance Studies in Seville, Spain, where Sawyer read a paper, "King Shakespeare: Carlyle, Commemoration and Performative Utterances." He also served as a judge for the graduate student essays presented at the meeting. In March, he will chair a panel entitled "Charting Collaborative Commemorations" at the same conference to be held this year in Huelva, Spain.
His presentations in Spain have also enabled Sawyer to begin publishing in Spanish journals. This month, his essay "Re-Reading Greene's Groatsworth of Wit" will appear in Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses (Alicante Journal of English Studies).
