Literary Giants Share 400th
Birthday at TAMIU
TAMIU celebrated two literary giants during October
with “Cervantes and Shakespeare @ 400.”
The Celebration focused on the two writers whose
works have inspired generations of readers from the 16th
century on.
Event organizers Dr. Ula E. Klein,TAMIU assistant professor
of English, and Dr. Lola O. Norris,TAMIU assistant professor
of Spanish, College of Arts and Sciences, department of
Humanities, said the first-ever event attested to the lasting
impact of both writers.
“This year marks the 400th Anniversary of the passing of
Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes and England’s William Shakespeare.
Both inspired generations of readers… and so we paid homage
to the creative spirit of these writers whose works encapsulate
the joys, the challenges, and the determination of the human
spirit,” Dr. Klein said.
Students, as well as members of the community, were
treated to a performance of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
by the LaredoTheater Guild International,
readings from Don Quixote, free film screenings at the Alamo
Drafthouse-Laredo, renowned Cervantes scholar Dr. Eduardo
Urbina’s lecture on the lasting impact of Cervantes’s novel,
a Texas Humanities-sponsored Shakespeare Exhibit which
drew resources of the Harry Ransom Center and production
photographs of the Department of Theater and Dance at The
University of Texas at Austin.
In addition, the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library’s Special
Collections hosted a month-long exhibit, “Cervantes @ the
Archive.”
The program was made possible in part by a grant from
Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment
for the Humanities.
Dr. Lola O. Norris & Dr. Ula E. Klein
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