The Crowdsourcing of Literature — The Global Hamlet, the first-ever people’s edition of Hamlet

March 12, 2015 - PRLog -- Hamlet is arguably the most studied and interpreted literary work of our time. The interpretations are endless and now, for the first time, one publisher will bring together the interpretations of thousands of people to create the ultimate resource on Hamlet. This will be the very first crowdsourced edition of a book anywhere. The Global Hamlet invites people from all over the world to contribute by sharing a quote, making a comment or telling a story of how Hamlet is still relatable in modern society.

How it works:

Currently, passages from Hamlet are posted on the Facebook page of The Global Hamlet along with pictures and/or video related to the passages and relevant reference sources.

Participants "like" The Global Hamlet facebook page and comment on posts. They can cite existing critical interpretations, images, videos and/or produce original texts, images and videos to support their understanding of the verses, all while interacting with participants from around the world.

The Global Hamlet editor also interacts with the participants, integrating their suggestions, commenting on their annotations and inviting them to expand further by asking questions that broaden their research and fill gaps.

At the end of the process, our editor will produce a full body of notes with texts, videos and images interwoven in a coherent narrative. The body of notes will be immediately displayed on the Global Hamlet website (www.globalhamlet.org).

The project has been well received in Europe is now reaching out to universities and festivals in the U.S. to invite them to participate as well.

“You enter this website and you become part of the future of the book.”
– Louise Sylvester, Department of English, Westminster University

The Global Hamlet is currently building a community through its facebook page at www.facebook.com/theglobalhamlet in advance of the crowdfunding campaign and launch of the fully interactive website.

All annotations and contributions from both social media and the Global Hamlet website will be compiled into a final edition and then published in the spring of 2016 with credit given to everyone that has contributed to the process.

About Simone Barillari

Simone Barillariis an essayist, translator and independent editor who has worked with all the main Italian publishing groups, among them Mondadori/Einaudi and RCS. Barillari has edited and managed several fiction and nonfiction book series. He has been the Founder and Director of the critically acclaimed publishing house Alet since 2005. His writings have been featured in the cultural pages of several national newspapers in Italy.

About Nefeli Misuraca

Dr. Nefeli Misuraca, Yale Ph.D. in art and literature, has been teaching for more than ten years collectively in such institutions as Yale University and La Sapienza in Rome. She is an accomplished speaker, giving lectures on cinema, baroque art, Italian literature, gender issues during the Renaissance, and, very recently, on the concept of beauty at La Sapienza. As a cultural critic, she has been a regular correspondent for The Cyprus Mail and is currently a regular correspondent for the Italian national newspaper il manifesto.

About The Global Hamlet

The Global Hamlet Project is the first-ever global annotation of a literary piece. The project brings Shakespeare fans together online to collectively translate and annotate Hamlet, creating a “living” book as the number of participants grows. http://www.globalhamlet.org, http://theglobalhamlet.tumblr.com/, https://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalHamlet