About the Event
Join us for a conversation with Sean Keilen as he discusses his new book, Shakespeare’s Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts. Keilen explores Shakespeare’s critical portrayal of scholarly life, revealing how the pursuit of knowledge can cut scholars off from the very world they seek to understand. Through a close examination of Love’s Labor’s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest, Keilen traces how Shakespeare’s scholar protagonists strive for self-knowledge and genuine connection, often stumbling along the way. During this discussion, we’ll explore lessons about humility, wisdom, and self-knowledge, and why the humanities remain vital today.
Who's Speaking
Sean Keilen
Sean Keilen is Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz and the founding director of Shakespeare Workshop, a center dedicated to the contemplation and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s plays with people from all walks of life. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts (Princeton 2026). Before...
Sean Keilen is Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz and the founding director of Shakespeare Workshop, a center dedicated to the contemplation and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s plays with people from all walks of life. He is the author of Shakespeare’s Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts (Princeton 2026). Before that, he wrote or edited books and essays about Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and the absorption of the classical tradition by writers in early modern England. Professor Keilen is also the Head of Dramaturgy at Santa Cruz Shakespeare, a professional theater company founded in 1981.
Chris Jones
Chris Jones is the editorial page editor of the Chicago Tribune after spending two decades as the Tribune’s theater critic, although he continues to cover the performing arts going forward. He received his PhD in theater in 1989 and has taught undergraduate and graduate classes for more than 25 years. He is the...
Chris Jones is the editorial page editor of the Chicago Tribune after spending two decades as the Tribune’s theater critic, although he continues to cover the performing arts going forward. He received his PhD in theater in 1989 and has taught undergraduate and graduate classes for more than 25 years. He is the author of both Bigger! Brighter! Louder!, published by the University of Chicago Press, and Rise Up! Broadway and American Society from Angels in America to Hamilton, published by Bloomsbury/Methuen.