Race and Gender in Early Modern Theater

In this course, we will cover a selection of Early Modern tragedies from various literary traditions (English, French, Italian, Spanish), to critically discuss and analyze dramatic representations of gender and race as portrayed on the Early Modern stage. Considering moments of renegotiation, critique, and resistance towards dominant hierarchies, we will give especial attention to marginalized characters, and/or to characters who are explicitly gendered or racialized in the plays in which they appear. We will accompany our reading of primary-source texts with selections from contemporary critical theory on gender and race, which will provide an important springboard for intersectional analysis.