Ndiaye, Noémie. "Race and transnational theater." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/race-and-transnational-theater. [Date accessed].

Race and transnational theater

Unseen networks of texts and racial narratives

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Noémie Ndiaye
The University of Chicago

Early modern racial thinking was shaped not within a single nation but through the constant circulation of stories, performances, and ideas across Europe. From transnational plotlines linking French, Italian, Spanish, and English plays to the spread of racial impersonation techniques in music and theater, these cultural exchanges reveal how racial narratives took shape through a shared artistic ecosystem.

Further learning

Video

Race and early modern performance culture

Early modern European theater, as a widely accessible mass medium, played a major role in shaping and circulating emerging ideas about race. Noémie Ndiaye discusses how some of these racial narratives still shape world today.

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