Making Shakespeare More Truly For All: Conversations Around Shakespeare and Race
“He has been positioned for us as this kind of universal, right, ‘Shakespeare speaks for all of us,’ and in having that power to speak for all of us, we never really think about the identity of the speaker. And so Shakespeare has been positioned as a transcendent figure, without race, without gender, without politics, without anything”
— Dr. Ambereen Dadabhoy (@DrDadabhoy), #SuchStuff S6 E2: How whiteness dominates the study of Shakespeare
“Why Shakespeare? … I think it’s worth really tackling the issue and also recognising that Shakespeare is a problem, because if we keep kind of protesting that there’s no problem about Shakespeare and ‘Shakespeare is for everybody’ without listening, without really looking at how Shakespeare has been problematised, then we’re going to miss what we really need to see and what we really need to be listening to. We have a young audience coming out, we have acting students, we have young actors emerging into the industry now and who are not going to swallow ‘Shakespeare is for all,’ and quite rightly, and this is a wake-up call for all of us.”
—Federay Holmes, #SuchStuff S6 E4: How whiteness dominates our theatres
One of the most important conversations happening today around Shakespeare is the conversation around Shakespeare and race. We have called our course “Shakespeare For All” because we deeply value Shakespeare’s works and we aim to make these works accessible and enjoyable for all audiences. But in the centuries since he lived, Shakespeare hasn’t always been for all. Not everyone has had equal access to reading, seeing, learning about, writing about, teaching, interpreting, performing, or producing the plays, and the plays haven’t spoken equally or authentically of all humans’ experiences. At the same time, it has often been claimed that Shakespeare speaks “for all” in a sense that disregards Shakespeare’s own identity and historical context, and the identity and context of his audiences. Conversations around Shakespeare and race can help us better understand Shakespeare in a critical, historical way — and, hopefully, create a more inclusive, respectful, and resonant experience for all people who want to engage with his works.
To help support those goals, we’re assembling a list of free online resources, largely audio- and video-based, that you can use to learn about and participate in these conversations. This list is far from comprehensive; we plan to keep updating it, and we are grateful for suggested additions — just email Maria McNair at maria@lyceum.fm
If you’re working on a topic connected to Shakespeare and race and would like to share your work via our Blog or through an interview, we’d be delighted to speak with you. Again, just email Maria at maria@lyceum.fm
#ShakeRace
Follow #ShakeRace on Twitter to join the conversation about Shakespeare and race with other teachers and scholars.
RaceB4Race is an “ongoing conference series and professional network community by and for scholars of color working on issues of race in premodern literature, history, and culture,” hosted by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. You can watch their past events on the ACMRS YouTube channel. Follow #RaceB4Race on Twitter.
Ayanna Thompson, a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University, directs the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, where she created RaceB4Race. On YouTube, you can watch her discussion of “Teaching Anti-Racism through Shakespeare” and her discussion of The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race with Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Shakespeare and Race, edited by Thompson, “invites the reader to understand racialized discourses, rhetoric, and performances in all of Shakespeare’s plays, including the comedies and histories,” and is available to order.
“On Building a #ShakeRace ‘Canon,’”
Brandy C. Williams, in her post “On Building a #ShakeRace ‘Canon,’” has created “#ShakeRace: An Introductory Guide,” which shares some of the foundational texts of Premodern Critical Race Studies. Follow @brandycwill on Twitter.
Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy
Wendy Lennon, PhD student at the Shakespeare Institute, English teacher, and writer, has founded Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy. You can find recordings of some of the events from this 5-day 2021 virtual conference on the Shakespeare, Race, and Pedagogy YouTube playlist . Follow @writerlennon and ##ShakeRacePedagogy on Twitter.
#SuchStuff and Anti-Racist Shakespeare
#SuchStuff, the podcast from Shakespeare’s Globe, has many episodes that look at Shakespeare and race, including Season 6, which focuses on Shakespeare and whiteness. Follow #SuchStuff on Twitter.
In 2020, Shakespeare’s Globe hosted the third “Shakespeare and Race” conference, “continu[ing] to question how the preoccupations of Shakespeare’s time collide with our own as we all work towards a more equal world.” You can learn more about the event and read related blog posts on the conference website, read Professor Farah Karim-Cooper’s article “Anti-racist Shakespeare”, and watch the recorded conversation from the conference, “Reckoning with our Past | Shakespeare and Race (2020).”
The Globe has also hosted a series of online webinars on “Anti-Racist Shakespeare.” Click here for the videos on The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Critical Race Conversations
As a Folger Institute Fiftieth Anniversary Project, Folger Shakespeare Library is hosting a series called Critical Race Conversations. The series “strive[s] to feature scholars who will write fuller histories of this transformative period that is early modernity, who will acknowledge deeper and more complex roots to enduring social challenges, and who will conduct more inclusive investigations of our contested pasts.” You can watch CRC events on the Folger Library’s YouTube channel. Follow #FolgerCRC on Twitter.
Also from the Folger Library, you can find the opening lectures from the 2019 RaceB4Race Symposium “Race and Periodization,” featuring Ayanna Thompson, Geraldine Heng, and Margo Hendricks.
The Folger Library’s podcast “Shakespeare Unlimited” has a number of episodes related to Shakespeare and race, including “Black Women Shakespeareans, 1821 – 1960, with Joyce Green MacDonald,” “Bringing Latinx Voices to Shakespeare, with Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa,” “Shakespeare's Language and Race, with Patricia Akhimie and Carol Mejia LaPerle,” “Shakespeare in Latinx Communities, with José Cruz González and David Lozano,” “Race and Blackness in Elizabethan England, with Ambereen Dadabhoy,” “Black Lives Matter in Titus Andronicus” with David Sterling Brown (@_theBrownprint_), “Othello and Blackface” with Ian Smith and Ayanna Thompson, “American Moor” with Keith Hamilton Cobb, a featured artist on Shakespeare For All, “Shakespeare in Black and White” with Marvin MacAllister and Ayanna Thompson, and “African Americans and Shakespeare” with Kim Hall, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, Bernth Lindfors, Francesca Royster, and Shane White.
Shakespeare Beyond Borders Alliance
“A Shakespeare network without limits, transcending borders, breaking through barriers and creating communities.” Check out their YouTube playlist for videos from the SBBA conference with topics including “International Networks and Communities: Applied Shakespeare in the Criminal Justice System” and “Introducing EQUALityShakespeare EQUALS: How can Shakespeare help us create a more equal society?”
Shakespeare and Race
Kyle Grady, assistant professor in the Department of English at UC Irvine, discusses Shakespeare and Race with Julia Lupton on the YouTube channel New Swan Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Virtues: Drama and the Public Good, which also features videos on Shakespeare and Black Life, Shakespeare and social justice, and Shakespeare and Trans Studies.
The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice
“The Arden Research Handbook of Shakespeare and Social Justice is a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on Shakespeare and issues of social justice and arts activism by an international team of leading scholars, directors, arts activists, and educators.” It includes sections that examine “Shakespeare's place and possibilities in intervening on issues of race, class, gender and sexuality.”