English 9224
Making Decolonial Shakespeares
Instructor: Professor Kim Solga.
Winter Half Course.
This seminar will introduce students to the "decolonial turn" in Shakespeare and early modern cultural studies, with a specific focus on the contributions of women-identifying artists (including AFAB, trans, Indigenous, POC, Black, and disabled artists). We will begin by unpacking what we talk about when we talk about "Shakespeare", examining the ways in which that figure became first, in the 18th and 19th centuries, central to the labour of the British Empire, and through the long 20th century central to the Anglo-American cultural economy. We will then turn to recent explorations of Shakespeare and race, Indigeneity, ability, gender identity, and more – both in the scholarly literature and, more importantly, in contemporary performance work.
Case studies will include the "O!" virtual streaming platform offerings at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Adjua Andoh and Lynette Linton’s Richard II at Shakespeare's Globe (2019); Emma Frankland's Galatea at the 2023 Brighton Festival; WhyNot Theatre's Prince Hamlet (2019), and Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordian's 1939 at the Stratford Festival (2022). In addition to reading literature and viewing performances, students can expect to hear directly from artists about their work, their rehearsal and creation processes, and their political projects, as well as to learn some of the processes, both ethical and scholarly, associated with ethnographic research in the arts and humanities.
