Staff Profile
Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling
Senior Lecturer: English Literature
BA degree in English Literature and Language (UCL), MA degree in English Renaissance Literature (York) Doctorate
in English and Related Literature (York).
I taught for a total of five years at Shandong University in the People's Republic of China before coming to York St John University in 2004 to work in the Department of English Literature. I have a First Class BA degree in English Literature and Language from UCL, and an MA degree with Distinction in English Renaissance Literature from the University of York, specialising in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and its sources.
My main research area is in Intercultural Shakespeare Performance and I am currently working on late communist, post-communist and post-modern appropriations of Shakespeare's Hamlet in China, Poland and the Arab world. I have published and presented at international conferences on the work of Lin Zhaohua, Jan Klata, Monika Pęcikiewicz and Sulayman Al-Bassam among others. I was included as one of the 11 York based researchers cited in the successful bid for York to become a UNESCO City of Media Arts 2015. I have taken part in the Erasmus Teaching Mobility Programme.
I am engaged with the York International Shakespeare Festival, hosting two Popular Shakespeare events during the inaugural Festival in 2015, and am involved in the latest festival. I have organised various international pedagogical and cultural events at York St John University. These have included China Week in 2008, coinciding with local and national events around the Beijing Olympics, and events during International Weeks. I am also a founding supporter of the Shakespeare in Performance series of conferences attached to the International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania (since 2010).
I am interested in broader issues of diversity and inclusion and have completed Stonewall training for the university. I am also interested in dyslexia/dyspraxia.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – s.vickerswalkling@yorksj.ac.uk
- Research - View my work in RaY
Publications and Papers
Articles
Ophelia’s terror: anatomising the figure of the female suicide bomber in The Al-Hamlet Summit. Cahiers Élisabéthains, 2019
Full of noises: when ‘World Shakespeare’ met the ‘Arab Spring Shakespeare Volume 12 3, 2016 with Margaret Litvin and Raphael Cormack
A Chinese Coriolanus and British Reception: A Play Out of Context Multicultural Shakespeare Vol 11 Issue 26, 2014
Review of Shakespeare and APAs Macbeth: Leila and Ben - A Bloody History Shakespeare Vol 9 Issue 3, 2013, with Raphael Cormack
Review of Shakespeare's Hamlet directed by Monika Pęcikiewicz. Shakespeare Vol 8 Issue 4, 2012
Books
Denmark’s a Prison: Appropriating Modern Myths of Hamlet after 1989 selected for the collection Shakespeare and Global Mythologies, edited Aneta Mancewicz and Alexa Huang, 2018
Blogs
Three Arabic Shakespeares, Putting Words into our Mouths in Year of Shakespeare: Blogging Shakespeare Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, June 2012
Shakespeare Travels https://saffronatstudy.wordpress.com
Conferences and Events
Blogging Workshop, York International Shakespeare Festival, May 2019 At YSJ
'"Frailty, thy name is woman": Gender Norms in the Post-1989 Political Hamlets of Lin Zhaohua and Jan Klata', European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA), Rome July 2019
Ophelia’s terror: anatomising the figure of the female suicide bomber in The Al-Hamlet Summit, European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA), Gdansk July 2017
Hosting/Introducing/Q&A: Coriolanus performed by Titus Theatre Group, Iran (screening) York International Shakespeare Festival, May 2017 At YSJ
Performing Shakespeare Workshop, York International Shakespeare Festival, May 2017 At YSJ
The worst (wo)man in the world: the Arms Dealer in Sulayman al-Bassam’s The Al-Hamlet Summit, European Directors of Shakespeare Conference, International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania May 2016
The Worst (Wo)Man in the World: Sulayman Al-Bassam’s The Al-Hamlet Summit, European Directors of Shakespeare Conference, International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania, May 2016
Popular Shakespeares 1 and 2 (convenor) York International Shakespeare Festival, 2015
Popular Shakespeares 1 and 2 (convenor) York International Shakespeare Festival, with Arne Pohlmeier 2015 At YSJ
Macbeth: Leila and Ben – a Bloody History: ‘World Shakespeare’ Meets the ‘Arab Spring’, Everyman's Shakespeare Conference, International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania, May 2014
Denmark's a Prison: Appropriating Modern Myths of Hamlet After 1989, Global Mythologies Seminar, European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA) annual conference, University of Montpellier, June 2013
Lost in translation? A Western Viewer (Mis)Reads a Chinese Production of Hamlet, Shakespeare Inside-Out, British Shakespeare Association Conference, University of Lancaster, February 2012
Hamlet and the Chinese Democracy Wall, Worldwide Hamlet in Performance and Translation Conference, International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania, April 2010
Ophelia and the Pretty Flowers rerun (see below) International Week York St John University, March 2009
Ophelia and the Pretty Flowers: Teaching Shakespeare in an ELT context, Crossing Continents International Shakespeare Conference, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, P. R. China, September 2008
