Rationale:
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is an incredibly rich text, not only for formal merit but for its seemingly prophetic resonances with colonial and postcolonial worlds that Shakespeare could have only glimpsed from his writing it in 1610. Even within this historical context, The Tempest presents an artist exploration of European identity and authority in the early colonial period. The Tempest, then, may be used as a core text for an introduction to postcolonial theory, an exploration of the construction of the colonial subject and white supremacy, and racial examinations of power structures. |
Introduction and Themes:
As a conduit into the text, we could explore texts/images that take on new meanings and resonances in different historical contexts, priming later explorations of adaptations, reimaginings, and allusions of The Tempest. As we enter the text, I will introduce the following themes, for which we will read:
|
Reading:
In class, reading would be a performance, with the cast being changed each scene (with some longer scenes being broken into more manageable pieces).
In class, reading would be a performance, with the cast being changed each scene (with some longer scenes being broken into more manageable pieces).
Supplementary Texts:
|
|