ENGL4334: Multicultural Shakespeare (64191)

Iyengar, Sujata

TR 12:45 PM

Park Hall 144


I have finally chosen my readings and viewings! Scroll down to see them!

Shakespeare through Multicultural American Literature and Performance

From nineteenth-century Yiddish burlesque of Merchant of Venice or Othello to the early twentieth-century “voodoo” Macbeth directed by Orson Welles, the mid-twentieth-century West Side Story and its early twenty-first-century update, Gloria Naylor’s late-twentieth-century transformation of The Tempest in Mama Day, Toni Morrison and Rokia Traouré’s Desdemona, and Kenny Leon’s ground-breaking all-African American Much Ado About Nothing in New York’s Central Park in 2019, Shakespeare has long formed part of multiethnic American cultural production. This class introduces students to Shakespeare’s work through the work of multicultural American writers and performers who have engaged with the Bard. Readings take students through prose, verse, and drama and through a cross-section of multicultural American identities.

 

Goals:

• Introduce students to Shakespeare’s plays and poems

•Introduce students to a range of multicultural American literary and cultural texts

• Introduce students to prose, verse, and dramatic literary forms

• Encourage students to reflect upon the function of literature in the twenty-first-century United States and upon themselves as learners and citizens

 

 

Benchmarks

 

*Response postings or peer-commentary

*Collaborative reading or teaching guides or performance guide

*Annotated Bibliography and Research Presentation

*Reflective journals and postings

*Final Portfolio of revised analytical, response, and reflective work

 

Texts (books and films; plan to purchase or rent recordings as well as books)

Plays by William Shakespeare (Folger Library Editions, ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Werstine):

 

Much Ado About Nothing

Merchant of Venice

Romeo and Juliet

Hamlet

Othello

The Tempest

 

Multicultural Shakespeare Adaptations

 

Everyone:

Kenny Leon, dir., Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare in the Park; recording of livestreamed performance)

Aaron Posner, District Merchants (play text: ISBN-13: 978-0-8222-4116-4)

Filming with Shakespeare: The Merchant in Venice (documentary film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGFAZOBhNYQ)

Michael Radford, Merchant of Venice (2004: film)

West Side Story (1961: film)

West Side Story (2021: film)

James Ijames, Fat Ham (play: supposed to be published March 2023: ·  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1636701684)

James Ijames, Fat Ham (recorded livestream; working on rights: https://tickets.wilmatheater.org/educationalstreaming/fathamstreaming)

William Sanders, “The Undiscovered”*

Gary Pak, Children of a Fireland (novel, ISBN-13: 9780824828363, U of Hawaii Press)

Toni Morrison and Rokia Traouré, Desdemona (play text, 978-1849433891)

Q Brothers, Othello: The Remix (play text, ISBN 13: 978-0-8222-3704-4)

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (novel, ISBN-13. 978-0679721819)

Elizabeth Nuñez, Prospero’s Daughter (novel, ISBN-13. 978-1617755323)

 

 

Optional (enthusiasts, multicultural area of emphasis, theatre students, graduate students, honors option):

Aditi Brennan Kapil, Imogen Says Nothing (play text, ISBN: 9780573707049)

Langston Hughes, Shakespeare in Harlem (poetry collection: selections*)

Fiddler on the Roof (1971: film)

William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1996: film)

LeAnne Howe, Shell Shaker (novel,  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1879960619)

Su Mee Chomet, Asiamnesia (play text*)

Claudia Rankine, Citizen (poetry collection, ·  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1555976903)

Keith Hamilton Cobb, American Moor (play text or recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub8Uhm45vr0,

ISBN-13: 978-0-8222-4146-1)

C. Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion (novel, ISBN 13: 9780312680534)

Aimé Césaire, Une Tempête [A Tempest], trans. Richard Miller (play, ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1559362108 )

 

Reader*: available from Bel-Jean Print and Copy, Broad Street, Athens, GA

 

Textbooks on reserve and available as e-books through the library

Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation (ebook through UGA Libraries: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ugalib/detail.action?docID=1016075)

Sujata Iyengar, Shakespeare and Adaptation Theory (ebook through UGA Libraries: access pending)

Doug Lanier, Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture (physical copy on reserve in main library)

Angela Pao, No Safe Spaces: Re-casting Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in American Theater (ebook through UGA Libraries: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ugalib/detail.action?docID=3414971)

Ayanna Thompson, Blackface (ebook through UGA Libraries: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=nlebk&AN=2733589&site=eds-live&custid=uga1&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_Coveri)