In 2014, as part of the celebration of the University of Fribourg’s 125^th Anniversary, a group of Fribourg students drawn from a range of departments and faculties presented a ‘Swiss’ adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. The production had been adapted and translated by the students themselves: the students also designed and made their own costumes and props, wrote and performed incidental music, and choreographed the production’s dances.  Since then, Unifr students have written and performed further ‘Swiss Shakespeare’ adaptations: The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Pericles. They have been invited to present workshops about the project in Lausanne and in London.  The nature of the multilingual translation has attracted scholarly interest. Most importantly for the present proposal, the pedagogical benefits of the project have been recognized. By their own assessments, collected in surveys after productions, students benefit from

• Increased comfort in using languages other than their ‘first’ languages
• Increased awareness of the nuances of their own dialects as compared to others
• Really detailed understanding of a Shakespeare play, at the level required for translation
• Appreciation of theatre history, particularly of the low-tech performance styles of Shakespeare’s theatre

Less obviously ‘academic’ but nonetheless important benefits included:

• Increased confidence in performing, particularly in close contact with an audience
• New friendships across language divides and with students from other departments
• New practical skills eg in dress-making, music composition

Furthermore, there were considerable gains in terms of ‘peer-pedagogy’.  The actors of Shakespeare’s day were trained through apprenticeship, with younger boys ‘shadowing’ their older peers, learning from observation and practice. Our multilingual Shakespeare productions similarly exploit peer-pedagogy, most commonly when actors with, for example, Swiss German first language help French-speaking actors pronounce lines in Swiss German, but also in other ways: students trained in dance, music and singing run rehearsals in which they pass on these skills to the others; backstage, students research and develop techniques for making costumes and props.  For this seminar, we will also be inviting experts in various aspects of staging Shakespeare to present workshops and enhance training.

In AS2024, for the first time the Multilingual Shakespeare project will be incorporated as an MA Seminar, formally recognising the learning opportunities and allowing students to gain credit for their work, which will culminate in a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  

Assessment by various methods including translations and blog posts and short films as well as more formal short essays and creative output: NB not all participants have to act; you can translate, or make costumes etc instead!