Performing Race in Early Modern Drama

Catalog description

The earliest known use of the term "white" in reference to Europeans occurs in The Triumphs of Truth, a 1613 play by Shakespeare's contemporary, Thomas Middleton. In addition to suggesting an important connection between race and drama in 17th-century England, this simple historical note raises a range of questions that have a direct bearing on some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century: Where do ideas about race come from? By what processes do the distinctions of racial concepts emerge, evolve, calcify, and mutate? How does the conceptualization of race relate to media? How do racial representations bolster and conduct political power? In this course, we will broach these questions by taking a close look at the race-making function of drama in early modernity, a period when race was an inchoate, incipient concept, caught up with the emergence of colonialism, capitalism, and increasing interconnection between peoples, cultures, and worlds. As we think, read, and converse together, we will endeavor to come to terms with the problems and paradoxes of racial representation in the early modern theater, a forum that offered access to innovative, daring thinking about human equality and ethical responsibility, but was also a site for the perpetuation of hateful stereotypes and exploitative theories of white supremacy. In a wide-ranging survey of drama, historical documents, and contemporary criticism, we will work toward an understanding of how race-based concepts operated in the theater, and how the drama early of modernity continues to influence thinking about race in our own time. This course meets the Dietrich College Reflecting Gen Ed requirement. Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or ( 76-107 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-108 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-107 and 76-108 )