NB! New dates: 10.-13.07.2023, 16-21 Uhr
Only twenty years ago political readings of The Merchant of Venice and of Othello, Shakespeare’s Venetian dramas, might have yielded results showing the dramatist’s affinity to classical republicanism. Now Ian Smith has pleaded for focusing on ”racial literacy” in order to be able to challenge what he calls Shakespeare’s ”cooptation into both the English and the American nationalist discourse”. The seminar will attempt close readings of both plays in order to find out to what extent such an approach can enrich our understanding of the political dimension of early-modern drama. – Participants should have read the two plays by the beginning of the first meeting.
Set texts: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice and Othello (Arden/Oxford/Cambridge editions).
Recommended further reading: Ian Smith, Black Shakespeare, Reading and Misreading Race (Cambridge: UP, 2022). |
