Little, Jr., Arthur J. "(Mis)Appropriations, Shakespeare, Race, and the Police." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/shakespeare-and-the-police. [Date accessed].
Shakespeare and the police
Understanding the ways Shakespeare and early modern studies are policed in and out of the academy.
(Mis)Appropriations, Shakespeare, Race, and the Police | Watch the full video
Presented by Arthur L. Little, Jr. at Appropriations: A RaceB4Race Symposium in 2020
Arthur L. Little, Jr. addresses the ways Shakespeare and early modern studies are policed in and out of the academy. He reflects on “policing” in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Adam P. Kennedy and Adrienne Kennedy’s Sleep Deprivation Chamber play, drawing parallels to the police brutality experienced by Rodney King on March 3, 1991, which was broadcast to the world. Little compares the policing of the Black body to the intellectual theft that often surrounds Shakespeare and early modern studies.
Further learning
Recommended
Henry V and belonging
Shakespeare's language and status in the Western canon can feel inhospitable to many students, especially students of color. Teaching Henry V with a focus on linguistic identity, legitimacy, and belonging can open conversations that allow students to carve out a Shakespeare for themselves.
Blackness and Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare’s works at large, and early modern literature more broadly, all deal with constructions of race. Shakespeare’s sonnets are especially fruitful for considering how the languages of fairness and darkness are used in nuanced ways to develop particular understandings of race.
