The annual conference celebrating the Bard of Avon included film showings in Arabic and English, and a superb one day symposium featuring Prof. Kiernan Ryan, who delivered two spectacular lectures, Dr. Azza Karrara who participated by video and read sonnet 66 in Arabic and English with a brief commentary and visuals, and finally Ismail Serageldin who delivered a wide-ranging discussion of Hamlet, tribal story telling, Imru’u Al-Qais classic Arabic poem and even Racine’s Phaedra in French.