Department of English Staff Publication

Old Bill
Friday, June 4, 2021 - 16:00

Dr Stephen O’Neill’s article, “Bring yourself back online, Old Bill: Westworld’s media histories, or six degrees of separation from Shakespeare” has been published in the international, peer-reviewed journal Cahiers Élisabéthains. The article explores the polysemous intertextuality of HBO’s Westworld, reading it as an example of ‘complex television’ and focusing on its Shakespearean coordinates. In this futuristic show about sentient androids is a deep web of connections to other Shakespeare adaptations in film, digital cultures, and popular music. Through the perspectives of fan studies and media studies, the article argues that the show’s discourses suggest a micro-media history of Shakespeare screens.  

Read the article here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01847678211009414