Little, Jr., Arthur J. "(Mis)Appropriations, Shakespeare, Race, and the Police." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/shakespeare-and-the-police. [Date accessed].

Shakespeare and the police

Understanding the ways Shakespeare and early modern studies are policed in and out of the academy.

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Arthur L. Little, Jr.
University of California, Los Angeles

(Mis)Appropriations, Shakespeare, Race, and the Police | Watch the full video

Presented by Arthur L. Little, Jr. at Appropriations: A RaceB4Race Symposium in 2020

Arthur L. Little, Jr. addresses the ways Shakespeare and early modern studies are policed in and out of the academy. He reflects on “policing” in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Adam P. Kennedy and Adrienne Kennedy’s Sleep Deprivation Chamber play, drawing parallels to the police brutality experienced by Rodney King on March 3, 1991, which was broadcast to the world. Little compares the policing of the Black body to the intellectual theft that often surrounds Shakespeare and early modern studies.

Further learning

Recommended

Essay

Hamlet and the color of criminality

Bringing Hamlet into a recognizable universe of modern concerns and asking students to think about the demands reading Shakespeare and race places on them as 21st-century thinkers.

Ian Smith
Reading list

Reading race in Shakespeare

Suggested readings from Ian Smith for an in-depth understanding of the "cliché of race."

Ian Smith
Activity

Journaling through questions of race

The journal is a place where students can engage in dialogue with themselves. This kind of reflection helps students track how their understandings of race develop over time.

Kyle Grady

Selected annotated bibliography