Digital Asian Shakespeare Festival, 11th World Shakespeare Congress, Singapore, 18–24 July 2021

The 2021 Digital Asian Shakespeare Festival nested within the 11th World Shakespeare Congress in Singapore, ‘where communities of Shakespeare scholars, teachers and practitioners in over 40 countries’ gathered online. Lee Hyon-u, the Festival Director, arranged an astonishing array of Asian performances. Lee wrote of the festival as offering ‘rare opportunities for delegates to enjoy the diversity and depth of Asian Shakespeare while breaking through the barrier of the Covid pandemic’. This article argues that recent Asian Shakespeare productions included in the festival offer inspiration for those staging Shakespeare worldwide as the arts attempt to recover from the pandemic.

Contemporary Zoroastrians

The article shares the findings based on participant observation conducted during the 11th World Zoroastrian Congress as well as on the analysis of other resources linked to contemporary Zoroastrians. Paying attention to the internal differentiation of the Zoroastrian world community, it focuses on the components that stand in the way to its integration, as disagreements that refer to customs, religion, or the matter of who the “real” Zoroastrians are. It also discusses the boundaries between those who believe to be Zoroastrians form generations and the outside world, as well as the ways these boundaries eventually can be crossed through conversion or intermarriages.

WCSJ2019: scaling new heights in Switzerland

At a time when science is perceived to be under attack and our planet is facing severe challenges, the role of science journalism in taking on these challenges was a key theme of the 11th World Conference of Science Journalists. But, while policymakers and science leaders are urging journalists to help restore public trust in science, science journalists are concerned about the future viability of their profession in the face of faltering business models in mainstream media.