“‘Not a Moor Exactly’: Shakespeare, Serial, and Modern Constructions of Race.”

Corredera, Vanessa. “‘Not a Moor Exactly’: Shakespeare, Serial, and Modern Constructions of Race.” Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 67, no. 1, Oxford University Press, 2016, pp. 30–50, http://doi.org/10.1353/shq.2016.0009. Accessed 21 July 2021.

Corredera argues that when teaching Shakespeare’s plays, specifically Othello, educators should use the term race when discussing early modern conceptions of Otherness. Although scientific understanding of race did not emerge until the 17th century, Elizabethans established Otherness through markers such as religion, skin color, locale, and exoticism. Corredera cites the work of other early modern scholars who agree that constructions of race today are no more stable than they were during the Renaissance, and not necessarily grounded in biology: factors such as language, culture, religion, appearance, and ethnicity still influence contemporary ideas of race (Corredera 30-32). To illustrate, Corredera points to the podcast Serial: This American Crime, which followed the trial of Pakistani American teenager Adnan Syed, convicted of murdering his Korean girlfriend. Journalist and host Sarah Koenig confused religion with race when she said authorities were not motivated by “anti-Muslim feeling, by racism” (Corredera 38). Jury members struggled to define Syed’s Otherness, mistakenly referring to his “Arabic” culture (Pakistanis are not Arabs), and associating him with stereotypes of “how they treat their women” “over there” – even though defendant and jurors all lived in Baltimore, sharing the same culture (Corredera 39-40). Even for informed and educated people, facets of identity outside of biology such as religion and ethnicity still inform conceptions of the Other, making it vital to recognize race in Shakespeare’s works (Corredera 41-45).

--Jess Fraser

"'O Blood, Blood, Blood': Violence and Identity in Shakespeare's Othello"

Feather, Jennifer. “‘O Blood, Blood, Blood’: Violence and Identity in Shakespeare's Othello.” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England, vol. 26, 2013, pp. 240–263. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24322748. Accessed 15 July 2021.

Jennifer Feather claims that, based on early modern understandings of “blood” being both a fixed indicator of biological lineage and “the fluid nature of humoral physiology” (241), Othello’s cry of “O blood, blood, blood” when he believes Desdemona’s “infidelity” would not be understood as a reaction of barbarism/savagery but rather it would be understood as the early modern notions of chivalry connected with violence that would restore honor to both him and Desdemona. Blood, Feather establishes, would form one’s concept of identity in body, soul, and environment, in which Othello establishes a heroic and chivalric understanding of the self. When his identity of self is threatened and destabilized by Desdemona’s alleged infidelity, he makes “essence and performance one in the same” (244) in order to address this unbalance. Brabantio evokes Desdemona’s betrayal as “a treason of the blood” (1.1.166), Desdemona’s will and “nature” betraying itself and in doing so, him, an understanding Iago capitalizes on when decimating the understanding of love to “merely a lust of the blood and permission of the will” (1.3.332). To “set right” the instability of Desdemona’s “lust of blood” and lack of will, Othello keeps her corporeally intact, “Yet I’ll not shed her blood” (5.2.3), while ensuring she cannot wreak havoc upon others. He stabilizes himself again when the truth is discovered through recognizing Desdemona’s sacrifice and committing his own, using chivalric violence as a way to connect and navigate the corporeal, divine and social understandings of identity.

--Hannah Nagy

"Re-‘Turning’ Othello: Transformative and Restorative Romance"

Britton, Dennis Austin. “Re-‘Turning’ Othello: Transformative and Restorative Romance.” ELH, 
vol. 78, no. 1, 2011, pp. 27–50. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41236533. Accessed 14 July 2021.

            Current Othello critics focus on Othello’s identity as an outsider and on his race; however, Britton argues Othello’s identity as a Christian is more important to the transformative romance popular during that time period, especially in Italy. Britton focuses on transformative romance to emphasize Iago’s goal of restoring Othello’s original religious identity. To emphasize his point, Britton examines other works during this time period that featured the incorporation of non-European people into society, namely Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto and The Moor of Venice by Giraldi Cinthio. One feature of the romance genre is the ability to transform identity. Romance’s ability to convert was popular because Venice encountered people from other lands, so transformation meant acceptance into Venetian society. In order to destroy Othello, Iago cannot only focus on Othello’s race, and Iago, ultimately, failed in doing so in the first Act of the play. Iago must dissimilate Othello’s identity as a Christian since this is what permits him acceptance into Venetian society. Ultimately, Iago succeeds in eliminating Othello’s Christian identity and restores the other feature of the romance genre: the ability to return to the original identity.

- Tracie Yule

Decolonizing Othello in Search of Black Feminist North American Identities

Cucarella-Ramon, Vicent. “Decolonizing Othello in Search of Black Feminist

    North American Identities: Djanet Sears’ Harlem Duet and Toni Morrison’s

    Desdemona.” International Journal of English Studies (IJES), vol. 17, no. 1,

    2017, pp. 83–97

In “Decolonizing Othello in Search of Black Feminist North American Identities: Djanet Sears' Harlem Duet and Toni Morrison's Desdemona,” Cucarella-Ramon compares Harlem Duet by African Canadian playwright Djanet Sears and Desdemona by Toni Morrison to Shakespeare's Othello and uses them to to carve out a new definition of what it means to be black in North America and Canada. Cucarella-Ramon claims that these texts can be used when looking at the study of (black) identity construction within US and in relation - Canada. Through rethinking and rewriting Othello in the modern era, they create a social and racial reality “unrelentingly disrupted by difference and hybridity,” (Cucarella-Ramon 83). Or in other words, Cucarella-Ramon puts Harlem Duet and Desdemona in conversation with Othello to offer a modern look at race in Othello, and more importantly offer a way for African Americans and African Canadians a way to read Othello and be able to place themselves in the story. They also bring the role of women to the forefront to render a feminist and democratic definition of the black female self. Cucarella-Ramon thinks that these readings can offer a look into the black identity in North America. 

• Priscilla Adams 

“You Be Othello: Interrogating Identification in the Classroom.”

 DeGravelles, Karin H. “You Be Othello: Interrogating Identification in the Classroom.”

Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2011, pp. 153-175. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.1215/15314200-2010- 021. Accessed 7 July 2021. 

In “You Be Othello: Interrogating Identification in the Classroom,” Karin DeGravelles argues that in teaching Othello, it is our responsibility, as teachers and readers, to engage with the play in a way that focuses attention on those “who have been harmed,” as opposed to the traditional literary elements (172). She says that in doing so, we can inspect the play with a focus on historical trauma. Through her investigation, DeGravelles addresses the multiple “permeable” lines that separate areas such as “fiction and reality, past and present, or the world of students and the world of Shakespeare’s text” (153). DeGravelles dives into these permeable lines through five different discussion points that lead to her claim. First, she argues against mere teaching of identification because it is influenced heavily by “performance choices, including the choice to perform at all” (158). For example, how an actor plays a part or even what they look like can affect an audience’s ability to identify with that character and will change with each performance. Further, an actor’s role or identification shapes the performance of the play, as DeGravelles cites an example of an actor who so identified with Othello and became him on stage that he scared the actress playing Desdemona (159). These discussions then transition into the pedagogical practices, including a push for performance techniques that “reveal much about the play that purely textual approaches do not” (163). When students have the opportunities to read, perform, or act out scenes, they engage with the text in ways that having a teacher read aloud cannot reach. Finally, DeGravelles ends her discussion by reaching her claim through a discussion on race and pedagogy, admitting that many teachers avoid teaching Othello in the classroom because of its potentially sensitive nature, but that is the very reason it should be taught in the first place.

--Michelle Vucsko