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The Conference's two sponsoring organizations, the Shakespeare Oxford Society and the
Shakespeare Fellowship, are both organizations dedicated to academic excellence, as
defined through the independent scholarship of several generations of scholars, among
them J.T. Looney, B.R. and B.M. Ward, Charles Wisner Barrell, Charlton Ogburn, Jr.,
Ruth Loyd Miller, and Mark Anderson, among others.
The primary focus of both organizations is to consider and advance the case already
argued by these and other writers identifying Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as
the true mind behind the mask of "Shakespeare." Although papers exploring alternative
authorship theories (e.g., Mary Sidney, Francis Bacon, etc.) are welcome, presenters
should bear in mind that conference attendees are for the most part well versed in the
arguments for and against Oxford's authorship as presented in these seminal works. Those
desiring an audience for alternative authorship scenarios, or writing from an orthodox
"Stratfordian" perspective, should prepare themselves by carefully considering the
expectations of their audience. Please weigh the arguments for Oxford's authorship and
construct your own arguments in relationship to them.
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The Conference encourages presentations that shed light on the Shakespeare plays in production at OSF: The Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, and 1 Henry IV..
1) The default time slot for all presentations will be 45 minutes, with 10 minutes for questions and answers. All presentations will have a question and answer section. If you are not able to condense the essentials of your argument to a 45-minute time frame, you may request more time from the committee, but additional time will only be granted to proposals that, in the opinion of the committee, are especially deserving of more extended consideration by conference attendees.
2) Send an abstract of no more than 250 words to the committee and a brief biography before June 15, 2010.
3) If you have not previously presented at an SOS, SF, or Concordia, Oregon conference, we welcome your submission. However, you are also requested to send a draft of your presentation, either as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, to the committee by the June 15 deadline.
4) Academic presentations, ideally construed, are acts of persuasion. It goes without saying that all papers should be grounded in a clearly identifiable thesis supported by examples or evidence. Proposals that do not fit this criteria are unlikely to be accepted for presentation.
5) If you have previously presented a topic that you believe deserves continued attention by the Oxfordian community, please consider presenting it again if you have a fresh layer of argument or evidence to present.
6) In the past, papers concerning cryptograms and codes have proven particularly problematic within the anti-Stratfordian community. Anyone interested in presenting an argument that involves cryptological evidence will be expected to show that his or her proof fulfills the criteria for validity advanced by William F. and Elizebeth S. Friedman's classic The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined (1957).
To submit a paper or for further information: contact
John Hamill,
Earl Showerman, or
Bonner Cutting.
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