Dadabhoy, Ambereen. "Othello and the epithet of 'Moor.'" Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/othello-and-the-epithet-of-moor. [Date accessed].
Othello and the epithet of "Moor"
Reading between the lines of Shakespeare’s othering language
The coded language of the War on Terror, the 2017 Muslim ban, and the conflict in Gaza is not new. Muslims have been stereotypically portrayed as violent and tyrannical since the premodern periods. It’s important for students to be able to identify these strategic maneuvers in premodern literature and culture so that they can see these reflected in our present moment and identify them as false and misleading constructions. Ambereen Dadabhoy uses Shakespeare’s Othello as a text through which students can think about contemporary Islamophobia and the tropes about Muslim people that we still encounter today.
Further learning
Recommended
Medieval North and East African art
Medieval African art demands to be understood, not in relation to Europe alone, but as part of a wider Afro-Eurasian world. Andrea Myers Achi discusses the interconnection across medieval North Africa and the Mediterranean and Africa’s cultural exchange and influence on medieval art history.
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Titus Andronicus as the gateway drug
Students believe they know what Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or Macbeth mean, but rarely do those “meanings” stem from the students’ close engagements with the texts. Using Titus Andronicus at the beginning of any Shakespeare class forces students to experience Shakespeare anew.
