The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race

Ayanna Thompson

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781108492119
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108613996
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race shows teachers and students how and why Shakespeare and race are inseparable. Moving well beyond Othello, the collection invites the reader to understand racialized discourses, rhetoric, and performances in all of Shakespeare's plays, including the comedies and histories. Race is presented through an intersectional approach with chapters that focus on the concepts of sexuality, lineage, nationality, and globalization. The collection helps students to grapple with the unique role performance plays in constructions of race by Shakespeare (and in Shakespearean performances), considering both historical and contemporary actors and directors. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race will be the first book that truly frames Shakespeare studies and early modern race studies for a non-specialist, student audience.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Note on Shakespeare Editions
• Chapter 1 Did the Concept of Race Exist for Shakespeare and His Contemporaries?: An Introduction
• Chapter 2 The Materials of Race: Staging the Black and White Binary in the Early Modern Theatre
• Chapter 3 Barbarian Moors: Documenting Racial Formation in Early Modern England
• Chapter 4 Racist Humor and Shakespearean Comedy
• Chapter 5 Race in Shakespeare's Histories
• Chapter 6 Race in Shakespeare's Tragedies
• Chapter 7 Experimental Othello
• Chapter 8 Flesh and Blood: Race and Religion in The Merchant of Venice
• Chapter 9 Was Sexuality Racialized for Shakespeare?: Antony and Cleopatra
• Chapter 10 The Tempest and Early Modern Conceptions of Race
• Chapter 11 Shakespeare, Race, and Globalization: Titus Andronicus
• Chapter 12 How to Think Like Ira Aldridge
• Chapter 13 What Is the History of Actors of Color Performing in Shakespeare in the UK?
• Chapter 14 Actresses of Color and Shakespearean Performance: The Question of Reception
• Chapter 15 Othello: A Performance Perspective
• Chapter 16 Are Shakespeare's Plays Racially Progressive?: The Answer Is in Our Hands
• Chapter 17 How Have Post-Colonial Approaches Enriched Shakespeare's Works?
• Chapter 18 Is It Possible to Read Shakespeare through Critical White Studies?
• Further Reading
• Index