Othello and Its Afterlife

3 credits · Graduate

This course focuses on a single play by Shakespeare as a key site where early modern notions of race, gender and class converge. It begins by interrogating the apparent stability of Shakespeare's text, which exists in alternative authoritative versions (Quarto and Folio) and is always mediated by the conditions of a playhouse in which white males play both women and blacks. We'll aim to unpack the complex, cultural constructions of gender and race with which this play is so deeply concerned by studying a range of contemporary discourses (primary source material on microfilm) as well as Shakespeare's own Titus Andronicus, which anticipates some of Othello's preoccupations. FORMATS: Seminar