Research Seminar for Literature Majors (397-0-20)
Topic
Global Shakespeare
Instructors
Wendy L Wall
Meeting Info
University Hall 318: Mon, Wed 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
Appropriation, Adaptation, Citation, Allusion, Reinvention: how do these terms describe ways that 20th and 21st century artists --working in different media across the globe-- use Shakespeare's drama as a resource for exploring issues such as colonialism, war, same-sex desire, race, non-binary gender, school violence, urban ethnic tension, legal injustices, and anti-Semitism? From Renaissance London to 21st -century India, from apartheid South Africa to US teen culture, readers have remade Shakespeare's plays in powerful and strikingly different ways. In this research seminar, we will reflect on the transformations of Shakespearean drama in cultures of the world, through a range of media (print, theater, and film). We will focus on The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and The Tempest as well as Toni Morrison's Desdemona, Shishir Kurup's Merchant on Venice (a play about Hindu, Muslim, and Latina/o cultures in modern Los Angeles), Aimé Cesaire's A Tempest, the prison documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars, and the film O, and Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti, Te (the Māori Merchant of Venice). Together we will think through the steps needed to undertake research in the humanities, addressing ways to design a research project, identify and treat sources, and develop a sustained argument.
Teaching Method
Discussion.
Evaluation Method
Research assignments, papers, projects; oral presentations.
Class Materials (Required)
Aimé Césaire's A Tempest (trans. Richard Miller) ISBN: 1559362103
William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, ed. Halio, Oxford World Classics 1st edition, ISBN: 019953585X
William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Thompson, Honigmann, The Arden 3rd series, 2nd edition, ISBN: 1472571762
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Vaughan, The Arden 3rd series, ISBN: 1408133474
Toni Morrison, Desdemona, ISBN: 135027027X
The texts listed above will be available at: Amazon. All other films and texts will be available on the Canvas site.
Class Attributes
Department Majors Only