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)

9781009224093, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 March 2025

228 pages
23 x 15.1 x 1.3 cm, 0.325 kg

'This book provides students with a compelling demonstration of how to read early modern plays for (mis)representations of race.' Ursula Clayton, University of Warwick

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]