Profile your academics, students and alumni as part of the British Council’s global Shakespeare Lives campaign

The British Council’s Shakespeare Lives project involves a host of activities across the world to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on 23 April – a chance to celebrate the impact of a writer who has had an effect across centuries, spanning all areas of culture, arts, science, philosophy and more.

The British Council’s Education UK website will be producing 13 short films as part of Shakespeare Lives. These will complement our existing efforts to inspire students to study at the UK’s world-class universities and colleges. They will be used as part of Shakespeare Lives and British Council promotions across the world, from digital campaigns to on-the-ground activities ranging from student outreach workshops and exhibitions to high profile in-country talks about the impact of Shakespeare.

The series will include:
Five Shakespeare academics films
Four Alumni of Shakespeare films featuring three international alumni of UK universities (three separate films and one film featuring all alumni)
Four Students of Shakespeare films featuring three UK international students (three separate films and one film featuring all alumni)

Who are we looking for?

Academics

Films will feature UK academics in a range of fields who explore Shakespeare in interesting and innovative ways. They will draw on academics who represent the breadth of the UK higher education sector. Academics will each feature in an individual film.
We would like academics to respond to one of the following themes:
• Shakespeare and language
• Shakespeare and literature
• Shakespeare and society/history
• Shakespeare and science
• Shakespeare in performance
Academics should choose one of these themes and give an introduction to an area of their research that is related to Shakespeare.
These films are intended to engage a wide UK and international audience across the Shakespeare Lives project - as well as our primary audience of international students considering studying in the UK. In making our selection, we will be looking for:
• Subjects that are interesting, fresh and innovative and that make people sit up and listen
• Speakers who can make their topics understandable to those with little or no prior knowledge of the subject
• Speakers who make the audience want to tune in, listen and watch to the end of the film
• Academics should be:
• Expert in Social sciences, Humanities, Performing and Visual Arts, Business or STEM fields
• A strong preference will be given to academics with prior video/audio interview experience and with a demonstrable interest in advocacy work for their field of study.
• Our aim is for our series to represent the diversity of UK academics (geographical, gender, ethnicity)

Students

Our students of Shakespeare films will feature international students in the UK who are inspired by Shakespeare in a range of areas of their student life. Using the ‘hook’ of Shakespeare, we will bring show the UK’s world-class education, explore how students can discover and develop shared interests in the UK, highlight the cultural offer that students can enjoy in the UK and promote the UK’s multicultural environment through the lens of the global relevance of Shakespeare.
We aim to select three students and produce three individual films and one featuring all three students.
We will feature students from a range of institutions. We aim to represent students studying as wide a range of subjects as possible, not just humanities.
Students can be of any age.
When selecting students, we will particularly be aiming for:
• A humanities student, either on a specialist Shakespeare course or a course with a large component relating to Shakespeare
• A drama student on a course/doing options that feature Shakespeare performance
• An English language student who has explored Shakespeare in his/her course
• If there is a strong candidate, we are also keen to feature a student of a non-humanities or non-creative subject – e.g. STEM fields – who has a real, proven passion for Shakespeare
• We will aim to select one student from core South Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and one student from China or Hong Kong. However, we are not limited to featuring students from these countries if other candidates from other countries appear to be the best fit for our campaign criteria
• Students can be of any age and gender
• We plan to feature students from a geographical spread of institutions across the UK

Alumni

Our Alumni of Shakespeare films will feature former international students in the UK who encountered Shakespeare in some way during their student/early life and who can explain how this relates to their work today. Using the ‘hook’ of Shakespeare, we will show the UK’s world-class education, explore how students can discover and develop shared interests in the UK, highlight the cultural offer that students can enjoy in the UK and promote the UK’s multicultural environment through the lens of the global relevance of Shakespeare.

This film will have a strong careers focus, showing the excellent employment prospects of a UK education.

We aim to produce three individual films and one featuring all three alumni (four films in total).

We will feature alumni of a range of institutions. Alumni do not need to have studied humanities subjects. Examples of alumni who would fit the brief:

• A former student who studied Shakespeare (humanities, specialist subject, etc.) and who went on to carry this into their working life (as a teacher, academic, etc.).
• An actor who studied in the UK who has performed Shakespeare
• A former student who was drawn to study in the UK by the culture and heritage of Shakespeare

Our aim is to represent former students from a diverse range of backgrounds (country, ethnicity, age and gender) and a geographical spread of institutions.