Global Community and World Literature Lecture Series 2022

C5-5: July 12, 8-9:30 (Beijing Time): Cordelia’s Nothing

How did silence work to shift perspective? When Cordelia says nothing—particularly when she first says nothing in a pause, she interrupts the performance expected of her and spectators must take her perspective in order to understand the silence, the refusal to take her turn in the stychomithia. Cordelia refuses the performance requested of her and through her silence we sense her.

The silence in question, for today at least, is the pause in King Lear and Cordelia’s stichomythia at the start of the play—when she famously says nothing to his request for rhetorical verbosity.

Meeting ID: 958 5946 5036; Passcode  637352

Amy Cook  is Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and Professor in English in College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University.  Cook  specializes in the intersection of cognitive science and theatre with particular attention to Shakespeare and contemporary performance. Her   book,   Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting   (University of Michigan Press, 2018), was published in March 2018 .   She has also published Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies  (Methuen, 2016), co-edited with Rhonda Blair.  She received her Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego (2006), had a postdoc at Emory and accepted a position at Indiana University before coming to Stony Brook.