Caroline Lion: Hannah Arendt's Worst Nightmare
Channel: Kingston Shakespeare
Date: 2022-02-16

Recorded on  September 7, 2019.

Caroline Lion is a PhD research student at the Shakespeare Institute under the supervision of Ewan Fernie. Conferences at which she has participated include Shakespeare and Presentism (Kingston and UNLV, 2018), Shakespeare and Philosophy (Royal Holloway, 2018) and soon (October 2019) the Blackfriar’s Conference at the American Shakespeare Center. Her rabbinic training includes the Academy of the Jewish Religion/Los Angeles as well as the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and her rabbinic teachings have been published in the weekly online journal DovrayTorah. She has been an instructor at the University of Birmingham and at Southern Oregon University.  Once the literary manager of the award-winning Magic Theater in San Francisco, Caroline’s fiction and plays have received notable endorsements.  She lives in Stratford upon Avon and flies to Ashland, Oregon in the fall to teach classes, do research and to be with family and friends. Her thesis is titled Beyond Violence: “The Merchant of Venice”.

Built in 1756, this striking little octagonal building and its 18th    century pleasure-garden setting were restored in 1998/99 by the Garrick's Temple Partnership Project, funded in part by a Heritage Lottery grant and donations from a range of other organisations and individuals. The renowned actor-manager, David Garrick, built the Temple to celebrate the genius of William Shakespeare, commissioning the sculptor Roubiliac to provide a life-size statue of his hero to be placed inside. The recent restoration reinstates the statue in replica and also houses a display which celebrates David Garrick's acting career and his private life in Hampton. Garrick’s Lawn is the name of the garden on the Thames that surrounds Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare. Although there is no official record to prove it, it is widely believed that Lancelot “Capability” Brown advised David Garrick on how best to lay out the grounds of Garrick’s Villa.
https://www.garrickstemple.org.uk/

The Kingston Shakespeare Seminar has been created to realize the director Sir Peter Hall’s vision for the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames as a world centre for Shakespeare study and performance.

KiSS brings leading international Shakespeare scholars to the Rose, which Sir Peter Hall developed to be a ‘teaching theatre’. Here Sir Peter directed Dame Judi Dench in a celebrated production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. More recently, Trevor Nunn directed the John Barton and Peter Hall adaptation The Wars of The Roses at the Rose. But KiSS also commemorates Kingston’s historic connection with Shakespeare, which goes back to David Garrick – who lived here, and built the beautiful Shakespeare Temple beside the Thames – and to the first performances of some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays at nearby Hampton Court Palace. 

David Garrick built his Shakespeare Temple as a place where ‘the thinkers of the world’ would meet to reflect on the plays. He hoped Voltaire would come. Now the Kingston Shakespeare Seminar is realising the great actor’s vision, with this series of symposia on Shakespeare in Philosophy.
https://kingstonshakespeareseminar.wordpress.com/

The Shakespeare and Philosophy project has grown out of Kingston Shakespeare and it is an independent, non-profit, crowdfunded collaborative entity dedicated to promoting the humanities and access to knowledge in a precarious world. The project is run by early career and independent  researchers and will be creating online content, for example videos and podcasts, as well as bringing together people interested in the varied field of Shakespeare and philosophy. It has also taken on the task of recording, editing and disseminating the Kingston Shakespeare archive, especially the Temple symposia. For updates see and follow shakespeareandphilosophy.net or shaxnphil.com. They are always looking for collaborators and interviewees.

Video and audio recorded by Anna Ilona Rajala and Timo Uotinen. Edited by Timo Uotinen.