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

Download the transcript
Ambereen Dadabhoy
Harvey Mudd College

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

Reading list

Staging Islam and Shakespeare

Ambereen Dadabhoy’s course asks students to investigate how individual, cultural, and political Muslim identity is manufactured in Shakespeare’s canon.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
Video

Early modern Orientalism

Dadabhoy's course asks students to read  premodern texts to deconstruct enduring fictions about Islam and Muslims across time and place.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
Activity

Tracing tropes

Ambereen Dadabhoy’s semester-long sequence of assignments aims to support students in their own knowledge production through the interpretations of primary texts.

Ambereen Dadabhoy

Recommended

RaceB4Race Highlight

The far right's Byzantium

Roland Betancourt analyzes contemporary white supremacist invocations of Byzantium. The alt-right ideas of a New Byzantium share links with premodern narratives of defeat and reconquest.

Roland Betancourt
Video

Hospitality in The Winter’s Tale

If we allow Shakespeare to remain inaccessible or inhospitable, then we reinforce the idea that he is white property. What can our students, especially our students of color, bring to a play like The Winter’s Tale?  

Ruben Espinosa
Essay

La Chanson de Roland and white supremacist medievalisms

La Chanson de Roland as a national epic was a product of both European nationalist and colonial aspirations. It's important for students to understand how the poem and its histories can reiterate Eurocentric white supremacist values if not properly contextualized.

Adam Miyashiro