“What William Shakespeare can tell us about the traps of tyranny and how one can avoid them”

In the annual Wasmuth Lectures, renowned authors and scholars address philosophical, political, and artistic issues of our time. This year’s lecturer is Stephen Greenblatt, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, professor at Harvard University, and a leading literary scholar. His award-winning studies on Shakespeare, including Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, illustrate his approach of analyzing literature in the context of the social and cultural environment of its creation. Among his most recent publications is Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics. Greenblatt’s lecture on “What William Shakespeare can tell us about the traps of tyranny and how one can avoid them” will be complemented musically by Arnold Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, performed by students of the Barenboim-Said Akademie and conducted by Thomas Guggeis.

In English with simultaneous German translation.