Experiencing Shakespeare in Digital Environments

This special issue on Experiencing Shakespeare in Digital Environments explores the new frontiers of textual and performative spaces opened up by digital media in Shakespeare Studies. Against the background of the ongoing scholarly debate, where the outcomes of digital culture and their far-reaching implications have been examined from a variety of perspectives, the volume identifies three main areas of investigation. The articles of the first section illustrate how increasingly interactive and cross-networked digital environments affect our ways of approaching Shakespeare's textuality. They touch on a variety of topics that are gaining prominence in the debate, ranging from the digital turn in textual transmission and editorial mediation to the newly available tools and methodologies in source studies and Shakespeare pedagogy, with an eye to the specific cognitive, reading and learning abilities of digital natives. The second section investigates the changing notions of performance against the innovative modes of cross-mediality, trans-mediality, and inter-mediality. It dwells on how the remediation of theatre into the digital media circuit has not only problematized the concept of 'liveness' as an essential component of the medium itself but has implied the creation of hybrid products and all sorts of paratexts that need to be understood within new models of global and local communication. As the articles included in this section show, Shakespearean performances – whether they are produced and put on in traditional 'centres', like the Globe in London, or in the elsewheres of the world – are growingly broadcast through digital channels: they therefore constantly dialogue with each other thus assuming intercultural meanings that challenge established ways of interpreting and criticizing Shakespeare. The third section is concerned with a broad spectrum of ways in which digital technologies impact the performance, adaptation and transmission of Shakespeare's works. Including discussions of Shakespeare DVDs, internet memes, televisual hacks, Virtual Reality (VR) installations and a live streaming broadcast from a prison, the contributions contemplate how the digital, in its myriad guises, permeates and updates both the production and reception of Shakespearean codes.

本特刊以「数字环境中的莎士比亚体验」为主题，探讨数字媒体在莎士比亚研究领域开辟的文本与表演空间新前沿。在当前学界持续展开的学术讨论背景下，数字文化的成果及其深远影响已从多元视角得到考察，本特刊确立了三大核心研究方向。第一板块的论文阐释了日益互动化、跨网络化的数字环境如何影响我们解读莎士比亚文本的路径，其涉及的议题在学界讨论中愈发受到重视，涵盖文本传播与编辑中介的数字转向、源文本研究与莎士比亚教学法中新兴可用的工具与方法论，并聚焦数字原住民特有的认知、阅读与学习能力。第二板块探究了在跨媒介性、转媒介性与互媒介性的创新模式下，表演概念的演变：该板块详述了戏剧向数字媒体传播回路的转译，不仅对「现场性」作为媒介本质属性的观念提出了质疑，更催生了混合产物与各类副文本，这些内容需要在全球与本土传播的新型模型中加以理解。正如本板块的论文所示，莎士比亚戏剧表演——无论是在伦敦环球剧场这类传统「中心」制作上演，还是在世界其他非中心区域呈现——正愈发通过数字渠道进行传播，它们由此不断相互对话，承载起挑战既有莎士比亚阐释与批评范式的跨文化意涵。第三板块聚焦数字技术以多样方式影响莎士比亚作品的表演、改编与传播这一广泛议题，论文内容涵盖莎士比亚主题DVD、网络迷因、电视恶搞改编作品、虚拟现实（Virtual Reality）装置，以及来自监狱的直播转播等，这些文稿探讨了数字形态以其万千面貌，如何渗透并革新了莎士比亚文本代码的创作与接受过程。