In the fall semester of 2018, my students at Harvey Mudd College participated in “The Quality of Mercy Project,” whose remit was to offer a collaborative but locally inflected vision of what The Merchant of Venice communicates to us and how we can, in turn, perform and transform this play given our particular, regional interests … Continue reading Looking for Mercy in The Merchant of Venice
After Race Before Race
On Friday and Saturday, January 18-19 2019, Arizona State University’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies directed by Professor Ayanna Thompson hosted a paradigm shifting conference on race and race studies in the medieval and early modern periods. Following upon The Globe’s Shakespeare and Race Symposium of August 2018, this program expanded the field … Continue reading After Race Before Race
Shakespeare and Race at the Globe
image credit: Shakespeare's Globe Over the past 10 days I have been thinking about how privileged I am to be able to do the work I do: to read and teach Shakespeare, to critically think and write about how the artistic and cultural legacies of the past ripple through time to affect our present. While … Continue reading Shakespeare and Race at the Globe
The Fluid Mediterranean
About a month before I traveled to Malta, I received proofs of an article on an Early Modern English play called The Knight of Malta. The timing was quite fortuitous, reminding me not only of my research interests in the construction of racial difference via ideologies of religious difference, but also of my interest in … Continue reading The Fluid Mediterranean
Banning Persepolis is not how we defeat Islamophobia
Image copyright Marjane Satrapi and Pantheon Marjane Satrapi’s searing graphic memoir Persepolis continues to remain controversial and relevant over 15 years after its publication in North America. The memoir follows the childhood trauma endured by Satrapi as she came of age during the student--and then-- Islamic revolution in Iran in the 1970s. Satrapi depicts the … Continue reading Banning Persepolis is not how we defeat Islamophobia
White women are oppressed, too, or Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale
All images courtesy of HULU The second season of Hulu’s critically acclaimed and award winning show, The Handmaid’s Tale premiered last week. Picking up where, last season’s seemingly triumphant cliffhanger left off, with our heroine Offred-June in a black “Eye” van, being unceremoniously removed from Commander and Mrs. Waterford’s home for parts unknown. The final … Continue reading White women are oppressed, too, or Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale
Where was he radicalized? The fanaticism of A Noise Within’s Henry V
Where was he radicalized? Henry V at A Noise Within Photo credit A Noise Within We all know that Shakespeare’s Henry V is about war. While the play might feature a specious and spurious cause for war (as all good warmongers and their surrogates are wont to do), we are apt to forget that motivating … Continue reading Where was he radicalized? The fanaticism of A Noise Within’s Henry V
Why we need a Trump Shakespeare
Why we need a Trump Shakespeare I will begin with a straightforward contention: “Literature is good to think with. It makes us better analysts, better interpreters, better readers. It doesn’t supply answers.”[1] This will seem like a contradiction: that we acquire various critical thinking skills, yet we don’t utilize them in the service of … Continue reading Why we need a Trump Shakespeare
This Brown, Muslim-American Woman’s thoughts on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Image copyright Hulu Last week, the streaming service, Hulu, premiered its “peak TV” series, The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel. Three episodes of the series are out (with new episodes released every Wednesday), and they are simultaneously haunting and terrifying. If you’re unfamiliar with Atwood’s novel, it is set in a dystopian … Continue reading This Brown, Muslim-American Woman’s thoughts on ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Some thoughts on SAA 2017
A few weeks before the Shakespeare Association of America meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, I was invited to give a talk on race in the early modern period by the Shakespeare Club of Pomona Valley. This group is comprised of seniors who have either a lay interest in Shakespeare or were teachers at the secondary or … Continue reading Some thoughts on SAA 2017
Ambereen Dadabhoy 