Undergraduate Student UC Santa Cruz (College Nine, Psychology and Legal Studies Majors & Literature Minor) 

Interests: International Human Rights law, Genocide Studies, Postcolonial literatures, Archival Research, Translation, Orientalism, Poetry

Bio: Ani is a fourth year student who is hoping to pursue a career human rights law and advocacy. Alongside that, she has always been passionate about literature, particularly the poetry of Shakespeare, Milton, Silva Kaputikyan, Hafez, Anne Carson, Richard Silken, and Mary Oliver. In her graduate studies, she hopes to explore postcolonialism as a framework for human rights. 

Undergraduate Student UC Santa Cruz (Cowell, Literature Major 2025) 

Interests: Shakespeare, Early Modern Drama, Dramaturgy, Archival Research

Bio: Emma Bavera is a dramaturg, actor, and fourth year literature student who is particularly interested in exploring the relationship between the staging of dramatic texts from the Early Modern era and the audience experience. After graduating from UCSC, she will be pursuing her MA in Shakespeare and Creativity at the University of Birmingham.

Undergraduate Student UC Santa Cruz (Porter, Literature Major 2025) 

Interests: Creative Writing, Film, Art, Music, Shakespeare, 

Bio: Stone Williams is a fourth year literature student, fascinated with all avenues of storytelling from literature, to film, to even music and poetry. Stone became intrigued with Shakespeare after watching Throne of Blood, sparking a fascination with the artistic ways Shakespeare’s plays can be adapted. After graduation, Stone wants to pursue creative writing professionally with hopes to one day become a screenwriter. 

Professor of Literature, UC Santa Cruz

Research Interests: Shakespeare. Classics. History, theory, and practice of literary criticism. Liberal education (paideia, humanitas). Humanities in the public sphere. Analog humanities.

Bio: Sean Keilen is Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He founded Shakespeare Workshop to promote the study of Shakespeare’s plays in the community and to support the Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s annual theater festival, where he works as the Head of Dramaturgy. A past fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, Professor Keilen edited Shakespeare: The Critical Complex (1999) with Stephen Orgel, and The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical Literature (2017) with Nick Moschovakis. His new book, Shakespeare's Scholars: Three Lessons from the Liberal Arts, will be published by Princeton in 2026.