ütcü, Murat, gen. ed., and Anna Forrester, co-ed. Turkish Shakespeares. Turkey: Turkish Shakespeares, 2021. Accessed 24 February 2025. turkishshakespeares.wordpress.com. William Shakespeare (1564  1616), who is regarded as England  s national poet and   the Bard of Avon,   delves into the depths of human nature and unravels the complexities of the human experience in his works. His literary and artistic heritage manifests itself in a variety of forms ranging from dramatic structure to philosophical ideas and poetic language. His canonical plays have been frequently staged and adapted for the contemporary stage and the screen. As a master of imagery, he transcends the conventional boundaries of his era and society through his genius and his dynamic art. Shakespearean drama, which has both maintained its value over time and is always open to rediscovery, continues to have a profound impact on not only British culture and literature but also the broader scope of  global culture and literature. As a literary and cultural icon, his drama has resonated in many different cultures and societies around the world. In this respect, Shakespeare is   bir yazar, yönetmen ve oyuncu olmanın ötesinde bir tiyatro markası   (a theatre brand beyond being a playwright, director, and actor),1 which makes it important to preserve his universal literary and cultural heritage for  future generations in the UK and beyond.  Shakespearean drama has also secured its place in the history of Turkish theatre with its rich legacy. Accordingly, not only have Shakespeare  s works been academically adapted to the Turkish educational system and curricula, but textual, performative, and digital studies on his art and philosophy have been produced as well. Turkish stages have also carried Shakespeare  s literary and cultural heritage to the present through original productions, adaptations, and translations. These Turkish representations mean the domestication, glocalization, universalization, and immortalization of  Shakespeare  s unique heritage. From this perspective, the Turkish Shakespeares digital project, which launched in 2021, is an extremely timely and resourceful  initiative to both enrich our understanding of Shakespeare  s universal heritage in Turkey and around the globe, and to bring the Turkish Shakespearean tradition into the 1. Can Do an, quoted in Gulash Ozdemir,   Türkiye  de  ekspir Olmak.   My translation.  Early Modern Digital Review 8.1 (2025) 23  24  Early Modern Digital Review  future by setting his world stage in Turkey, ensuring Shakespeare  s continued relevance in a changing world. The Turkish Shakespeares digital project is a unique and valuable resource that collects both bibliographical and audio-visual performance recordings of Turkish versions of Shakespeare  s plays in a digital archive. Its blog posts and academic studies also contribute greatly to the promotion of the Shakespearean tradition in Turkey. As a non-profit project, it aims to introduce texts, productions, and research on the Turkish Shakespearean tradition to a large and diverse group of researchers from different countries and cultures on a global scale. It is a platform that   brings together researchers who have conducted or are currently conducting studies on the Bard, consolidating their work under a single framework.  2 It provides its users with a historical collection and academic archive to discover and understand the Turkish Shakespearean tradition. The promising project both presents itself as a collective archive to establish a connection between two different cultures and has the potential to be a solid source of inspiration for future research and projects. Highlighting the universality of Shakespeare as a man of culture and art, this digital project, initiated by Murat   ütcü as its founder and editor-inchief, promotes the Shakespearean tradition in Turkey in academic, cultural, and artistic contexts while also leaving a great legacy for the future. Gül en Sayın, professor of English literature at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, appreciates this digital project as   an academic initiative that traces the historical reception of Shakespeare  s plays and their adaptations across various artistic disciplines in Türkiye.  3 She also reflects on its impact on Turkish cultural and literary life, noting that she   only realized how much such an initiative was needed in Shakespeare studies in Türkiye after the project was launched.  4 It is an extremely scholarly contribution on Shakespeare  s works in Turkey  and even beyond. The project, which is inherently dynamic and continuously updated, also invites both global academics and researchers who conduct research and studies on the Turkish Shakespearean tradition to be a part of this project and discover new or different meanings of the Bard  s art, thereby enriching its impact on both national and international platforms. 2. Gül en Sayın, personal email communication with author, 29 January 2025. 3. Gül en Sayın, personal email communication with author, 29 January 2025. 4. Gül en Sayın, personal email communication with author, 29 January 2025.  Early Modern Digital Review  25  The digital project fosters collaborations for new research opportunities, offering a rich archive that blends both historical and contemporary studies on Shakespeare  s works. Considered as an initiative to promote Shakespeare across both the Turkish and global cultural spheres, it provides a digital collection on the history of Shakespeare in Turkey and invites its users to explore various aspects of Shakespeare  s impact in Turkey in the context of academic studies, blog posts, performances, adaptations, translations, and popular culture productions. The home page offers a range of things, including a video explaining the project  s purpose, a   Latest News   section featuring recent blog posts and links to events, a chronological list of Shakespeare performances in Turkey, a bibliography, and YouTube playlists about the Turkish Shakespeare tradition. Additionally, Turkish Shakespeares emphasizes its nature as a public site by highlighting at the bottom of the home page that it is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) license. The   Performance Archive   provides a chronological overview of Shakespeare performances on the Turkish stage from the 1840s to the present day along with links to available recordings. These audio-visual performances are provided by the State Theatres (devtiyatro.gov.tr) and the Tiyatrolar archives (tiyatrolar.com.tr/arsiv). Anna Forrester, co-editor of this project and a researcher on Shakespeare adaptations in Turkish culture, has contributed to the development of the project, particularly in terms of performance data and bibliographic cataloguing. She has also formed the   Translations of Shakespeare in Türkiye   section, which highlights the Turkish translations of Shakespeare  s works from the 1870s to the 2010s, along with their translators and original dates.   Bibliography of Shakespeare in Türkiye,   which consists of 136 academic studies in both Turkish and English, is organized into two timelines, each with hyperlinks: one covering the period from 1928 to the present, and the other focusing on the period up to 1928. Each timeline is arranged alphabetically and is regularly updated. Both sections also emphasize the project  s ongoing research and archiving process, which makes the dynamism of the project and its relevance more tangible for its users. As a possible future addition, it would be very valuable if users could also be directed to reviews of staged plays in newspapers and journal archives.   Playlists YouTube   features a variety of media resources arranged into eight playlists:   Turkish Shakespeares   Own Talks,     Talks and Conferences on Shakespeare in Türkiye,     Performances of Turkish Shakespeares,     Adaptations  26  Early Modern Digital Review  and Turkish Shakespeares,      Readings of Turkish Shakespeares,      Vlogs and Turkish Shakespeares,      Summaries of Turkish Shakespeares,   and    Popular Culture and Turkish Shakespeares.   Like the   Performance Archive,   this section also provides a broad range of media that introduces the Turkish Shakespearean tradition from multiple perspectives, encompassing both academic and popular culture, and allows its users to explore the diverse and multifaceted influences of Shakespeare on Turkish cultural and artistic history. The playlists consist of speeches and short clips in both English and Turkish, reflecting the bilingual nature of Shakespeare studies in Turkey. This archival work, which requires a major research and cataloguing process, provides important documents and data on the artistic and cultural past of Turkish society on the basis of Shakespeare studies, helps its users understand the historical process of this cultural context, and, most importantly, preserves this cultural memory and knowledge by carrying it into the future. It allows Shakespeare scholars and enthusiasts to pursue social and cultural changes by preparing the ground for new research. Further deepening the content of the archive with more explanations and details will only enhance the value of this project. The project  s blog, updated by researchers every one or two weeks, offers fresh, vivid, engaging, and contemporary content on Turkish Shakespeare studies. This section, which focuses on interdisciplinary studies of Shakespeare  s art and world in Turkey, uses the slogan   To Blog, or Not to Blog, That Is the Question   in reference to Shakespeare  s most famous line from act 3, scene 1 of Hamlet:   To be or not to be: that is the question.   It has an inspiring potential to encourage Shakespeare scholars to do new research with original content on the Turkish Shakespearean tradition. Posts cover a range of research topics, including performances, adaptations, translations, teaching Shakespeare in Turkey from primary to higher education levels, Turkish theatre/film artists and/or groups performing Shakespearean drama, and various issues such as gender, race, environment, and similar themes in Shakespeare  s works. The blog also offers a guiding perspective on the timeliness and predictability of research and development opportunities in the field. One of the most remarkable features of this project is its invitation to global scholars and researchers to collaborate with the project  s regular contributors, as emphasized on both the   Join   and   Submissions   pages. It aims to include a wide range of scholars and researchers from within and outside of Turkey, from fields such as media studies, cultural studies, and history, as well  Early Modern Digital Review  27  as English language and literature, Turkish language and literature, theatre, and translation. This promise of interdisciplinary research collaboration will ensure the continuous self-renewal and future development of the project. The   Call for Papers   page heralds three valuable academic research projects that have the potential to bring new perspectives to Shakespeare studies in Turkey and open the door to new research: two edited books, titled Adapting Turkish Shakespeares and Women and Turkish Shakespeares, which are currently in progress, and a collection of articles for a special issue of the Journal of Narrative and Language Studies titled   The Global Folios and Other Papers.   All three seek to document and critically discuss Shakespeare and his great influence in Turkey by exploring various thematic, textual, and performative dimensions while presenting a collection of   non-Anglophone academic works on Shakespeare   (  Call for Papers  ). In this regard, this digital project intends both to create an archival record of Turkish Shakespeare studies accessible to a wide audience of researchers and to broaden the field of research by deepening the philosophical, psychological, ideological, and sociological aspects of these studies. While aiming to explore how Shakespeare has been adapted, translated, domesticated, politicized, glocalized, and commercialized in Turkish cultural, literary, and artistic life, these works also promise to fill an important gap in Shakespeare studies in Turkey. Both   News   and   Events,   designed to provide updates on current studies and new events related to Turkish Shakespeares, serve as crucial resources for those interested in the topic. They also highlight that Shakespeare  s popularity has not declined, demonstrating his continued universality in Turkish theatre today. In addition to all of these efforts, as a multifaceted project, Turkish Shakespeares also brought together numerous Shakespeare scholars and researchers from Turkey and abroad for a successful conference, entitled   Our Glocal Shakespeare: Intercultural Encounters with the Bard,   in Istanbul in April 2024, on the 460th anniversary of Shakespeare  s birth. The conference was held in collaboration with the Department of English Language and Literature at Istanbul Bilgi University in order to establish a   contemporary academic dialogue with Shakespeare   (  Conferences  ). At present, the team involved in Turkish Shakespeares continues to work individually to advance Shakespeare studies in Turkey and contribute resources to the project. This team not only creates an archival record but also enriches it by expanding research possibilities through their individual works. In doing  28  Early Modern Digital Review  so, they glocalize the voice of Turkish Shakespeares, effectively making it worldwide. This process represents a great cycle of glocalization of Shakespeare  s works, the dynamic nature of which spreads with the opportunities offered by digitalization. As a modest suggestion, for its users who want to communicate directly with individual team members, it may be useful for the website to add a contact section that includes members   email addresses or social media accounts. As with all cultural records or archives, this digital project is extremely crucial to maintain and carry forward the lasting traces of the cultural, literary, and artistic heritage of Shakespeare on human history. Consequently, this academic digital project, which has created an invaluable resource for Turkish Shakespeare researchers and promises them a source of inspiration for new research, seems to have a long future: to be or not to be  in this case, to be. Gamze  entürk Tatar Munzur  niversitesi  Works Cited   ütcü, Murat, Amrita Sen, and Soner Kaya, eds.   The Global Folios and Other Papers.   Special issue, Journal of Narrative and Language Studies 13, no. 27 (June 2025). https://nalans.com/index.php/nalans/issue/view/28. Ozdemir, Gulsah (@gulsahozdemir4588).   Türkiye  de  ekspir Olmak.   YouTube video, 6:54. 3 June 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6b_ KuORV3g&amp;list=PLTJsaHivle7PJik9wmtNl-9OevumR9t87&amp;t=9s.

## Références

Öğütcü, Murat, Amrita Sen, and Soner Kaya, eds. “The Global Folios and Other Papers.” Special issue, Journal of Narrative and Language Studies 13, no. 27 (June 2025). https://nalans.com/index.php/nalans/issue/view/28.

Ozdemir, Gulsah (@gulsahozdemir4588). “Türkiye’de Şekspir Olmak.” YouTube video, 6:54. 3 June 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6b_KuORV3g&list=PLTJsaHivle7PJik9wmtNl-9OevumR9t87&t=9s.