Jr Hon Sem:Shakespeare Pol T

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This is an exploratory honors seminar focused on the relationship between selected works within the Shakespeare’s corpus of play writing and the history of political thought. The plays present political, social, legal, and religious questions at stake in the public presentation of some basic forms of rule: Republics, both Ancient and early Modern; Monarchies, Tyrannies, and Utopias. We will read (and in some cases view) six (possible seven) plays: Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Richard III, Corolanus,(possibly Julius Caesar), and The Tempest. Some of the political themes and problematics considered will be: the moral and political responsibilities of rulership; power and legitimacy; women and (political) gender; authority and subversion; public and private justice, and the production of order.