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.

Download the transcript
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

RaceB4Race Highlight

Shakespeare and the War on Terror

Ambereen Dadabhoy investigates the long history of the logics of the War on Terror and how these structure narratives about Muslims across the centuries.

Ambereen Dadabhoy
Video

Immigration and Henry V

Ruben Espinosa draws attention to how the English language and the production of English identity are troubled in Henry V and asks students to reimagine their relationship with the Bard and his legacy.

Ruben Espinosa
Reading list

Indigenous Shakespeares

Selected readings to contextualize Shakespeare and indigeneity in your classroom.

Madeline Sayet

Selected annotated bibliography