Shakespeare in Tongues interrogates the popular conflation of "the language of Shakespeare" with English by examining the role Shakespeare's works have played in overlapping histories of colonialism, slavery, and migration that continue to shape the linguistic cultures of the United States.

Opening up urgent and overdue conversations about linguistic oppression, racism, and resistance within the settler colonial nation-state, Kathryn Vomero Santos draws our attention to artists, activists, and educators who have conjured, embraced, remade, and rejected Shakespeare in service of multilingual counternarratives that push back against dominant perspectives, refuse assimilation, and strive for more polyglot and polyvocal futures. As they shine a bright light on the legacies of the federal Indian boarding school system, Indigenous language revitalization efforts, the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, and battles over ethnic studies in classrooms, these critical and creative engagements with Shakespeare offer powerful examples of how his works might be used to facilitate a more truthful understanding of the past and to identify restorative paths forward.

Shakespeare in Tongues issues an imperative to redirect the material and intellectual resources that have been devoted to Shakespeare and his language toward truth, justice, and healing. This is essential reading for anyone studying or researching Shakespeare, race, translation, adaptation, and comparative literatures.

About the Author

Kathryn Vomero Santos is Associate Professor of English at Trinity University, USA. She is a co-founder of the award-winning Borderlands Shakespeare Colectiva and the co-editor of several books, including The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera, Volume 1 and 2 (with Katherine Gillen and Adrianna M. Santos; 2023 and 2024).

Book Information
ISBN 9781032274508
Author Kathryn Vomero Santos
Format Hardback
Page Count 224
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g