For centuries, plays like Othello and The Tempest have spoken about 'race' to audiences whose lives have been, and continue to be, enormously affected by the racial question. But are concepts such as 'race' or 'racism', 'xenophobia', 'ethnicity', or even 'nation' appropriate for analysing communities and identities in early modern Europe? Did skin colour matter to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, or was religious difference more important to them? This book examines how Shakespeare's plays contribute to, and are themselves crafted from, contemporary ideas about social and cultural difference. It considers how such ideas might have been different from later ideologies of 'race' that emerged during colonialism, but also from older ideas about barbarism, blackness, and religious difference. Thus it places the racial question in Shakespeare's plays alongside the histories with which they converse. Shakespeare uses and plays with the vocabularies of difference prevailing in his time, repeatedly turning to religious and cultural cross-overs and conversions - their impossibility, or the traumas they engender, or the social upheavals they can generate. Shakespeare, Race and Colonialism looks in depth at Othello, The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest, and Titus Andronicus, and also shows how racial difference shapes the language and themes of other plays.
Reviews
If you have not already seen this series [Oxford Shakespeare Topics], you must get to it now. It is reader-friendly and reliable. * Chronique *
... a very interesting treatment about self-definition, difference, and xenophobia. * Chronique *
Loomba's book is rich with a sense of the heterogeneous and multi-vocal present. * Helen Moore, TLS *
Race and colonialism have certainly become more important Shakespearean topics in recent years and one could not hope for a more authoritative and accessible discussion of them than that provided by Ania Loomba...In sum, this book offers a case study of how to write for the wider readership without betraying the complexity of the subject matter. * Peter Hulme, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History *
A concise, balanced and well-judged introduction to the revolution in Shakespeare studies ... Loomba's book will be very helpful to students in explaining many key terms ... Many of Loomba's judgments will be as useful to teachers as students. * Around The Globe *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198711742
Author Ania Loomba
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 204mm * 135mm * 12mm