This year’s keynote speech will be delivered by Professor Terence Eagleton who will discuss “Shakespeare and Communism”. The conference also celebrates 400 years since the first publication of Shakespeare’s sonnets with Professors Azza Kararah and Esmat Waly from the University of Alexandria who will read some sonnets in English and in Arabic. Professor Mustafa Riad from Ain Shams University will give a lecture entitled “The Brush and the Palette: Art of Painting and Shakespearean Criticism".