Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism

Ruben Espinosa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367182991
• eBook ISBN: 9780429594052
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism of Shakespeare
• Index: Literature

Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism examines Shakespeare in relation to ongoing conversations that interrogate the vulnerability of Black and brown people amid oppressive structures that aim to devalue their worth. By focusing on the way these individuals are racialized, politicized, policed, and often violated in our contemporary world, it casts light on dimensions of Shakespeare's work that afford us a better understanding of our ethical responsibilities in the face of such brutal racism.

Shakespeare on the Shades of Racism is divided into seven short chapters that cast light on contemporary issues regarding racism in our day. Some salient topics that these chapters address include the murder of unarmed Black men and women, the militarization of the U.S. Mexico border, anti-immigrant laws, exclusionary measures aimed at Syrian refugees, inequities in healthcare and safety for women of color, international trends that promote white nationalism, and the dangers of complicity when it comes to racist paradigms. By bringing these contemporary issues into conversation with a wide range of plays that span the many genres in which Shakespeare wrote throughout his career, these chapters demonstrate how the widespread racism and discord within our present moment stands to infuse with urgent meaning Shakespeare's attention to the (in)humanity of strangers, the ethics of hospitality, the perils of insularity, abuses of power, and the vulnerability of the political state and its subjects.

The book puts into conversation Shakespeare with present-day events and cultural products surrounding topics of race, ethnicity, xenophobia, immigration, asylum, assimilation, and nationalism as a means of illuminating Shakespeare's cultural and literary significance in relation to these issues. It should be an essential read for all students of literary studies and Shakespeare.

Index

Abbot, Greg 71

active resistance 131–2

Akhimie, Patricia 164n.4, 177

All Lives Matter 155

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 52n5, 131

American Moor 22, 26

“American Skin” 16

Anderson, Carol 2, 27–8, 43–4, 173

Andrea, Bernadette 178

anti-Blackness 17, 101–2, 103, 157, 158–9, 170

Anzaldúa, Gloria 117–18, 127–8, 148

apathy 121, 155

approximation, of whiteness 72, 103–4, 138–9

Arizona Senate Bill 1070 33–4, 52n5

assimilation 138

As You Like It 78, 79–81, 120–1, 126, 140–1

Baldwin, Alec 123–4, 125

Baldwin, James 3, 17, 21, 24, 139–40, 146–50, 159, 160

Bannon, Steve 173

Barrera Maruri, Reymundo 161–3

base/baseness 42–3, 45, 50

becoming American 139–40

Bell, Derrick 15–16, 105

Bell Curve, The 15–16

Between the World and Me 14

Biden, Joe 173

Binford, Warren 65–6, 67

birther movement 62

birthright 45, 105, 110

Black actors 18–...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Vulnerable bodies
• One The weight of whiteness
• Two What would Shakespeare do?
• Three All my pretty ones?
• Four Ain’t I a woman?
• Five Experiences of expendability
• Six The dangers of indifference
• Seven Howl
• Afterword I can’t breathe
• Further reading
• Index