The Shakespeare and Company Project

Abstract

The Shakespeare and Company Project allows scholars and the general public to explore and analyze the activities of the Shakespeare and Company bookshop and lending library in interwar Paris. Visitors to the site can discover what influential writers (including Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein) read and read in common, analyze the shifting demographics of expatriate communities in Paris, and address theoretical questions about the connection between proximity and taste, and elite and mass culture. The Project draws from the papers of Shakespeare and Company owner and founder Sylvia Beach, which are held at the Princeton University Library. Project Director Joshua Kotin collaborated with Technical Lead Rebecca Sutton Koeser and a team of researchers and developers to build the current web application, which is implemented with Python, Django, and Solr. The open source codebase is available on GitHub. The Project also required a team of students to transcribe and research archival documents and bibliographic records.