Michael Witmore, an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University, announced the launch of Shakespeare’s Global Globe on Saturday. The site is a map that indicates the locations of self-reported Shakespeare readers across the globe. If they’re reading one of Shakespear’s works, visitors can input their location, and one of his plays, via a slick revolving display. You can also filter the map according to genre or the title.
This isn’t the first time Shakespeare has made a social foray into the online world. A recent attempt came from Indiana University in the form of Arden, which was basically a modified version of the somewhat popular multiplayer computer game Neverwinter Nights with a Shakespeare theme. The game, however, had problems: Edward Castronova, associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University and creator of the game elaborates in a previous Wired Campus post.
Shakespeare’s Global Globe could possibly meet a similar fate — one could question the utility of knowing a few anonymous people are reading Shakespeare. But to be fair, Mr. Witmore wrote in an e-mail that the site can be used to explore regional reading habits.—Hurley Goodall
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