Overview

Examining the racially white 'others' whom Shakespeare creates in characters like Richard III, Hamlet and Tamora – figures who are never quite 'white enough' – this bold and compelling work emphasises how such classification perpetuates anti-Blackness and re-affirms white supremacy. David Sterling Brown offers nothing less here than a wholesale deconstruction of whiteness in Shakespeare's plays, arguing that the 'white other' was a racialized category already in formation during the Elizabethan era – and also one to which Shakespeare was himself a crucial contributor. In exploring Shakespeare's determinative role and strategic investment in identity politics (while drawing powerfully on his own life experiences, including adolescence), the author argues that even as Shakespearean theatrical texts functioned as engines of white identity formation, they expose the illusion of white racial solidarity. This essential contribution to Shakespeare studies, critical whiteness studies and critical race studies is an authoritative, urgent dismantling of dramatized racial profiling.

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9781009384162

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Reviews

'Brown's much needed study powerfully and persuasively demonstrates how the policing of whiteness within Shakespeare's plays recruits and reproduces antiblackness at the heart of early modern English culture.' Patricia Akhimie, Director, Folger Institute, Folger Shakespeare Library 'Premodern critical race studies is the most significant call to action for all Shakespeareans right now. David Sterling Brown's intervention is timely, unflinching, and provocative. It advances the field by bringing forward the figure of the white other, and draws together critical, personal and experiential modes of reading.' Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Oxford 'Shakespeare's White Others is stunning in its readings of plays from Macbeth to The Comedy of Errors with respect to the 'intraracial color line' and in the connections it makes to the deadly serious issue of racism. After Brown's book, no analysis of any of Shakespeare's plays will be able to efface race as a category of analysis.' Bernadette Andrea, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara and 2022-23 President of the Shakespeare Association of America 'David Sterling Brown's precise scholarship is infused with unapologizing emotion. Perhaps that emotion, and the scholarship, both rooted as they are in his Black humanity, are from the purpose of Shakespearean criticism as prior generations have established it. Of course they are... To a Black theater-maker like me, however, Brown's articulate and adamant voice is the sound of indomitability shouting through the subterfuge.' Keith Hamilton Cobb, actor and playwright, American Moor 'A remarkable work of scholarship by David Sterling Brown, Shakespeare's White Others is an in-depth examination of intraracial dynamics in Shakespeare's work that brilliantly articulates - and offers meaningful correctives - to historical practices. Dr. Brown audaciously illuminates the theatrical possibilities that emerge from a nuanced exploration of Shakespeare's infinite variety.' Simon Godwin, Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC 'With Shakespeare's White Others, David Sterling Brown engages racial whiteness and provokes interdisciplinary dialogue through his rhetorically accessible 'critical-personal-experiential' style. The book's unexpected final words, documenting Brown's own racial profiling experience, anticipate the depths of this brilliantly bold Shakespearean discourse that seamlessly blends genres while reimagining the scholarly monograph mode.' Claudia Rankine

Author Information

David Sterling Brown is Associate Professor of English at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, and a member of the Curatorial Team for The Racial Imaginary Institute, founded by Claudia Rankine. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society fellowship and the Shakespeare Association of America's Publics Award. Additionally, he is an Executive Board member of the Race Before Race conference series and he serves as dramaturg for the Untitled Othello Project, an ensemble that is reconceptualising how theatre practitioners engage with Shakespeare's work. His research, teaching and public speaking interests include African-American literature, drama, mental health, gender, performance, sexuality and the family. Learn more at www.DavidSterlingBrown.com.

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