Shakespeare, Cervantes Come to A&M International This Week

Shakespeare and Cervantes never ventured into the New World, but both will be the focus of a two-part lecture series at Texas A&M International University Jan. 27-28.

"The Colloquium on Shakespeare and Cervantes" sponsored by the University's College of Arts and Humanities, Department of Language, Literature and Arts, will two learned scholars to the University's Great Room in the Sue and Radcliffe Killam Library.

Both lectures are free of charge and open to the public.

On Thursday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. in the Great Room, Dr. John Alvis of the University of Dallas will present "Shakespeare's Hamlet and Machiavelli: How Not to Kill a Despot."

Dr. Alvis is the author of Shakespeare's Understanding of Honor, Carolina Academic Press, 1990; Shakespeare as Political Thinker (with Thomas West); and Divine Purpose and Heroic Response in Homer and Virgil: The Political Plan of Zeus, Rowman and Littlefield, 1995.

Copies of Alvis' Shakespeare's Understanding of Honor will be available for sale after the lecture.

On Friday, Jan. 28 at 10 a.m., also in the Great Room, Dr. Alban Forcione of Princeton University will present his "Cervantes: Discovery of the Human."

As a graduate student at Princeton, Forcione published his doctoral dissertation in two separate volumes: "Cervantes, Aristotle, and the 'Persiles' " and "Cervantes's Christian Romance." Both books have been indispensable to studies of Cervantes everywhere and placed Spanish literature at the center of Renaissance and Baroque art in Europe.

Professor Forcione has published significant articles on "Don Quijote," on the theatre and the prose works of Lope de Vega, and a detailed study of Baltazar de Gracian.

He has served on faculties of Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard Universities.

For additional information, contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at 326.2180.

University office hours are from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Journalists who need additional information or help with media requests and interviews should contact the Office of Public Affairs and Information Services at pais@tamiu.edu