Black Shakespeare
Reading and Misreading Race

In his compelling new book Ian Smith addresses the pernicious influence of systemic whiteness on our interpretation of Shakespeare's plays.

Ian Smith (Author)

9781009224086, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 September 2022

226 pages
23.5 x 16 x 1.5 cm, 0.5 kg

'In an argument that is both elegant and forceful, Smith makes the obvious but heretofore underappreciated point that the act of 'reading historically' is itself saturated with a racial history that must be a subject of analysis. For putting this argument on the table, and for its convincing reappraisal of some of Shakespeare's best-known plays, Smith's study is destined to be a landmark in a field that continues to pose powerful, searching questions in the humanities.' Michael Witmore, Folger Shakespeare Library

Race may dominate everyday speech, media headlines and public policy, yet still questions of racialized blackness and whiteness in Shakespeare are resisted. In his compelling new book Ian Smith addresses the influence of systemic whiteness on the interpretation of Shakespeare's plays. This far-reaching study shows that significant parts of Shakespeare's texts have been elided, misconstrued or otherwise rendered invisible by readers who have ignored the presence of race in early modern England. Bringing the Black American intellectual tradition into fruitful dialogue with European thought, this urgent interdisciplinary work offers a deep, revealing and incisive analysis of individual plays, including Othello, The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet. Demonstrating how racial illiteracy inhibits critical practice, Ian Smith provides a necessary anti-racist alternative that will transform the way you read Shakespeare.

Introduction. Toward racial literacy
1. The racialized reader
2. Racial blind spots: Misreading bodies, misreading texts
3. Antonio's 'Fair Flesh' and the property of whiteness
4. Hamlet: Playing in the dark
5. We are Othello
Epilogue. Forms of whiteness.

Subject Areas: Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies [JFSL1], History of the Americas [HBJK], Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD], Shakespeare plays [DDS]