Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

by Linda Theil Wally Hurst talks about his presentation "What's Your Authority for that Statement?" at the Toronto Shakespeare authorship conference Oct. 17-20, 2013. Wally Hurst is that rarest of creatures: a master of arts in Shakespeare authorship studies. He was awarded his degree from Brunel University, London, England in July this year. Also trained in the law, Hurst put his academic background to good purpose when he spoke on day-one at the Toronto Shakespeare authorship conference, October 17, 2013. Hurst's presentation was met with great enthusiasm by conference attendees; the title of his talk became something of a byword for the remainder of the conference. In fact, the question raised by Hurst's topic might serve as a motto for anti-Strats everywhere: "What's Your Authority for that Statement?" Hurst told his audience of authorship skeptics that they must develop a sense of skepticism about all research, including their own. In...

Oberon Chairperson Tom Hunter, PhD, commented online today on Michael Shermer's pro-Stratfordian essay in the August 2009 Scientific American at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=skeptics-take-on-the-life&page=2&posted=1#comments Hunter wrote: Mr. Shermer gets it wrong about Oxfordians. Justice Steven’s decision for Oxford as the true Shakespeare beyond a reasonable doubt was not the granting of some baseless wish. It was the inevitable discovery, by someone who could not be ignored, a justice of the United States Supreme Court, about where the considerable evidence for Oxford reasonably leads us. Justice Scalia has come to the same conclusion. Two Supreme Court justices. It is fine for Mr Shermer to dissent. We welcome dissent. But we need stronger dissent than the well-worn uninformed, erroneous, blustery reasons he gives, such as that there is zero evidence that Edward de Vere wrote under a pseudonym. Shermer needs to do his reading. He needs to read ...

Spurred by the Wall Street Journal article about Justice John Paul Steven’s anti-Stratfordianism , professional skeptic and publisher of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer, inveighs against the evils of authorship heresy in the August 2009 S cientific American . I’ve never understood Shermer’s staunch stance against authorship agnosticism. I would have thought that a skeptic might wonder how a man who couldn’t write managed to pen all those plays, or how the man from Stratford knew so much about science, math, astronomy, languages, law, mythology, and myriad books and authors. I thought a skeptic might be skeptical. But no, Shermer’s only concern is his hatred of conspiracy theorists. But what if there were no conspiracy? What if history just got it wrong when someone decided the playwright was this guy from Stratford? Would Shermer become an Oxfordian?  I doubt it. I don’t have much confidence in the intellectual acuity of the guy who said in his Scientific American essay: Some a...