KINGSTON, R.I. – April 16, 2026 – For centuries, William Shakespeare has been widely regarded as history’s most prolific English writer.
Even with Shakespeare’s worldwide impact still resonating, many are asking why he still matters to so many people. It’s one of several questions Jeffrey R. Wilson, a Shakespeare scholar at Harvard University and editor-in-chief of Public Humanities,will help answer during the University of Rhode Island’s Humanities and Popular Culture/Counterculture lecture series.
Wilson’s talk, titled “Why Shakespeare?,” will be held Thursday, April 23, at 5 p.m. in the Hope Room of the Robert J. Higgins Welcome Center, 45 Upper College Road on the Kingston Campus.
The yearlong lecture series, hosted by the URI Center for the Humanities, has explored topics ranging from music and social justice to women’s basketball to Taylor Swift. The series is co-sponsored by the URI College of Arts and Sciences, Division of Research and Economic Development, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies and the Affirming Multivocal Humanities Mellon Grant, and Department of Philosophy.
Wilson’s presentation, which concludes the 2025-26 series schedule, will also be livestreamed through the Center for the Humanities’ YouTube channel.
Wilson will welcome Shakespeare lovers and detractors alike to consider the question of the iconic writer’s popularity by looking into the relationship between his methods of artistic creation and the values of the modern world. Questions to be addressed include why virtually every American high school assigns Shakespeare to students; why cultures around the world with no love for England come back to Shakespeare; and why there are so many conspiracy theories about who wrote his plays.
Along with his work at Harvard and Public Humanities, Wilson has authored three books—“Shakespeare and Trump,” “Shakespeare and Game of Thrones,” and “Richard III’s Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity: Shakespeare and Disability History.”
The full speaker roster can be found on the lecture series’ website.
The annual signature yearlong lecture series, hosted by the University’s Center for the Humanities, is free and open to the public. A digital archive of last year’s lecture series can be found on the humanities center’s website. For more information on the series, email uri.humanities@gmail.com.