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Academic Papers

These links below will take you directly to my academic papers in this site, where you can read them or download a pdf copy at the top of each paper. They are also available on Academia.com and Google Scholar.

 

Dobie and the ‘Bucket Brigade Revival of 2018’

A brief paper about the completion of Storm King Dam in Stanthorpe in 1953, and the dire situation the town was in during the drought with only 33% of the normal rainfall. With the implementation of “drastic” water restrictions came a large group of people in the town known as the “Bucket Brigade” who allegedly came down to the standpipe at night to steal water. What an interesting comparison to 2018 where Mayor Dobie revived the “Bucket Brigade”. Was Mayor Dobie an astute, brilliant leader by researching the historically significant events or was it revived out of ignorance? What are the legal consequences?

 

Understanding the Gender Complexities of Shakespeare

The dramatists of Shakespeare are often characterized as being feminists because of the frankness of Cordelia in King Lear, the shrewdness or Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and the psychological manipulation of Volumnia in Coriolanus. For over four hundred years we have performed the incredible representations of men and women and their various roles and responsibilities in society during the latter Renaissance period, where male actors would have pretended to be the character of Viola in Twelfth Night, while pretending to be her brother Sebastian, as a male character. This seems to be quite a complex idea in the latter sixteenth century. Some scholars have suggested that feminism did not exist during this era. I will prove in this paper that these assertions are fatally flawed – feminism was alive and well during that era. However, the dramatists of Shakespeare were not feminists, per say, they were in fact Master Kabbalists teaching the gender complexities of the ancient Zohar and the Tree of Life, where one can allow ego to ruin one’s life, or shut down our reactive system and be transformed to the supernal (heavenly) realm of perfection beyond human perception and repair the world.

New Research into the Bassano Instruments

New Research about the Bassano family and the meaning behind the markings on their instruments, with the emergence of a new violin with different markings from their lutes and recorders.

Were the Bassanos Blackamoors, Black Jews, or tanned Italian-Spaniards?

A portrait has been shared around the world as a depiction of Emilia Bassano after being published on Facebook by Ansell Ortell in 2015, with the assertion that Emilia was the sole author of the Shakespearean works. The inference is that Emilia Bassano was a Blackamoor,
which by definition is a “member of the group of Muslim people from North Africa who ruled Spain from 711 to 1492”. This viral post, amongst other things, caused a young Hollywood scriptwriter by the name of Katrina Langford to contact me regarding proving whether or not Emilia was a Blackamoor. Throughout this paper, I proved that the Bassano family were not Blackamoors, but were tanned Italian-Spanish Jews in 16th century London where Jews were called “black” devils, and evil people because of their lack of understanding, where the printing press was a new invention and bibles were previously only in the hands of clergy. 

The Tinworths of Ballarat: A True Rags to Riches Story

A true rags to riches story prepared for BBC television program “Who Do You Think You Are?”

Bassano’s 1710 Performance Invoking Angels Sparked Revival

There are Church notes by the Bassano family to confirm Richard Bassano visited the St Oswald’s Church in Derbyshire in 1710 to set up the new organ with Thomas Cook, both of Staffordshire. In true family tradition, after the service had concluded, Richard Bassano played “a grave sonata” in an “elaborate Italian manner” before a church full of people, that brought revival. The story is a very interesting one.

 

The ‘Early Plays’ of Shakespeare?

Until now, there has been no definitive Genesis of the ‘Early Plays’ attributed to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. These literary works have been significantly debated by eminent scholars, musicians, composers, and a number of historians over the past two decades, yet none have fully peeled back the layers of time to unearth the buried secrets subtly concealed beneath. Many of those who have undertaken studies have majored from a literary perspective, but none have dared to examine the historical records as a forensic historian through the eyes of a philosopher and theologian.
During my 14 years research on the ‘Early Plays’, I have found crucial ancillary documents that many scholars have simply overlooked, or dare I say, had a vested interest in concealing. These documents clearly date many of the works some decades prior to previous scholars. In my major academic work of Genesis of the Shakespearean Works, I prove previous relative methodologies were simply flawed, and wrong conclusions have been adopted as fact. I have re-dated many of the Shakespearean plays, and de-masked the original dramatists who existed long before Shakespeare appeared on the streets of London.

 

The Bassanos: Jewish Guardians of the Ancient Arts

For centuries scholars have grappled with the fact that many of the Shakespearean characters are members of the Bassano family, but few have considered them as serious candidates for the dramatists of the Shakespearean works, until I released Shakespeare Exhumed: The Bassano Chronicles in 2013. In the lead up to the release of Genesis of the Shakespeare Works in early 2017, I thought it was time to release a paper containing some of my research into the Bassano family gathered over the last 14 years while forensically examining many thousands of relevant documents throughout the world.

 

Antonio Bassano’s 1544 Sefer ha-Refu’ot (Book of Remedies)

After publishing ‘Shakespeare Exhumed: The Bassano Chronicles’ I was contacted by a descendant of Antonio Bassano. He told me he had a book that would be of interest to me. I did not understand the significance of Antonio Bassano’s 1544 Sefer ha-Refu’ot (Book of Remedies) until I began translating the Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. The book exhibits Jewish natural healing remedies using substances of the earth, such as honey, wine, balsam, mandrake, date palm, numerous herbs, roots, minerals, and even stones – all of which were used throughout the Shakespearean works.

 

Leather Cover of the Bodleian First Folio

I compared the leather on the Sefer ha-Refu’ot and discovered it is strikingly similar to that of the Bodleian First Folio. It was bound with a dark brown chocolate fine calfskin leather with uniform grain laid grain side out, just as was done with the First Folio. The diagonal hatching blind-tooled on the edge of the spine of the Sefer ha-Refu’ot tend to suggest the ‘W.W.’ may be William Wildgoose because both books contain blind-tooled inboard bindings of brown calfskin over pulp boards with the same endleaf craftsmanship. The condition of the leather on the Sefer ha-Refu’ot is considerably better than the First Folio. They both have similar damage to the leather cover that is consistent with the age…

 

Early evidence of a female author in the First Folio

In the First Folio, there is a dedication to William Shakespeare by Ben Jonson. Within Jonson’s dedication, we find he attempted to defend Shakespeare against claims that a woman wrote the Shakespearean works. In examining the text, we must understand Ben Jonson was a good friend of Shakespeare, and happened to be with Shakespeare when he died of ‘feverous intoxication’ in April of 1616, some seven years before the First Folio was published. I investigate the early evidence of a female author.

 

Bassano Legal Case in Romeo and Juliet

In examining the 1597 First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, we find it did not mention the name William Shakespeare – it was anonymous. This is not surprising, especially considering a number of the characters were developed from a legal case involving the Bassano family members from Verona (where the play is set) and Bassano Del Grappa.