For several decades, Chicanx and Indigenous artists have been appropriating Shakespeare to reflect the multilayered histories and present concerns of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands. They repurpose Shakespeare’s plays and poems to meet the needs of their communities, and they incorporate them into the hybrid histories, cultures, and languages of the region, creating space in which to negotiate colonial power and tell stories of and for La Frontera. Their works expose the material violence of colonization and its linguistic, epistemological, and spiritual consequences, but they also emphasize the value, beauty, and restorative power of Indigenous and Mexican languages, mythologies, and rituals.

The Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva is pleased to invite submissions for our upcoming conference, “Adapting, Translating, and Performing Shakespeare in the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands,” which is tentatively scheduled for March 7–9, 2024. In keeping with our emphasis on knowledge produced in the Borderlands, the conference will be rooted in our community, taking place in San Antonio, Texas at the campuses of Texas A&M University–San Antonio and Trinity University. Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the conference will explore the place and potential of Shakespeare in the cultural production of the U.S.–Mexico Borderlands and, more broadly, the ways in which canonical Western texts are adapted, resisted, transformed, and appropriated in the Borderlands and in other spaces with complex colonial histories.

Borderlands Shakespeare sits at the intersection of many fields. We therefore invite submissions from scholars situated in Chicanx, Latinx, and Indigenous Studies, Theater Studies, History, Folklore Studies, and Translation, Adaptation and Appropriation Studies, as well as theater artists who are also active scholars. We invite scholarly papers, visual arts, creative pieces, workshops, panels, and performances.

Interested contributors should submit a 250 word abstract with title, brief biography, and contact information to the conference portal by October 6. For those interested in the Early Career Cohort, submit materials by September 1, 2023. For more information on both, visit the "CFP and Early Career Cohort Guidelines" link in the left toolbar.

To submit to the conference and early career cohort, make sure you are logged in and click "Submit Event" in the left toolbar to fill out the appropriate form. You must create a digital commons account to proceed.

Contact borderlandsshakespeare@gmail.com with any questions or comments.