Roma Tre Research Unit profits from and further expands the field of ‘Shakespeare and passions’ by applying Shakespeare’s language of emotions, as modern psychology calls them, to secondary schools’ contexts in order to move teen-agers’ empathic energies making those energies a tool of sociability. To reach the overall aims of the research, the unit uses multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological frameworks, starting from recent studies on sensory experiences, emotions and affect in the Shakespearean texts.

The research unit has been developing an expertise over a long period of time by leading, since 2019, a yearly educational programme for high-school students in Rome, both at the Globe Theatre and the Palladium Theatre. The educational programme was originally prompted by the recommendations of EU documents on life-skills and key competences. It was based on on-your-feet drama workshops and several creative activities in English or in translation/adaptation; the unit aims to further implement the programme by consolidating its educational model with the interdisciplinary synergy of Shakespearean scholars, pedagogists and psychologists as well as theatre practitioners, plus tenured and prospective school-teachers (including students of the LM37)

The application of these new learning methodologies which are mainly but not only based on creative practices of adaptation and performance aims to inspire a transformative experience of the emotionally charged Shakespearean language.

Maddalena Pennacchia (P.I.)