Since its first appearance on the English stage in 1604, William Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice has stoked controversy and inspired reflection on how and why we construct racial, religious, and national identities. He wrote his tragedy about a converted Moor who elopes with a “fair” Christian at a time when these categories were still quite fluid. People did not identify themselves primarily as belonging to “white” or “black” groups (although there certainly were signs of a developing racial hierarchy based on skin color). Moor was used to identify anyone with a darker-skinned complexion and/or anyone who was not Christian: this included Sephardic Jews, Ottoman Turks (who controlled the largest empire at the time), all Africans, and Muslims from any region, including Spain and the Middle East. With religious wars raging between Catholics and Protestants, Christianity was by no means a monolithic category either.

In this colloquy, we’ll take a deep dive into Shakespeare’s play, explore its complicated negotiations of racial, religious, and national difference, and talk about how it continues to connect to crucial modern-day issues. In addition to reading the play, we’ll watch different film and stage versions, and read parts of James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America.

Caroline Bicks is the Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine, and is also on the faculty of the Bread Loaf School of English. She is the author of Cognition and Girlhood in Shakespeare’s World (Cambridge UP); Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England (Routledge); and co-editor of The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500-1610 (Palgrave). She is also the co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas (Penguin and Scribe) and co-host of The Everyday Shakespeare podcast. See  Caroline Bicks for more.

  ▼ Syllabus/Reading