"Shakespeare's Illegitimate Bodies" Keynote Lecture "Teaching Shakespeare and Race" Colloquim

Drawing on cross-historical perspectives, Ruben Espinosa considers not only Shakespeare’s attention to notions of legitimacy and illegitimacy through his dramatic characters, but also interrogates how legitimacy is imagined when it comes to contemporary consumers and makers of Shakespeare. Who has legitimate access to Shakespeare, and why? Whiteness in all things Shakespeare looms large, and this reality often casts a shadow on, and renders illegitimate, people of color who engage Shakespeare. To attend to the perceived illegitimacy of black and brown bodies—bodies that have been deemed and imagined as ungovernable, threatening, and thus made vulnerable over time—is to recognize the need to scrutinize and reimagine the value of Shakespeare’s cultural capital so as to push back, through our research and our teaching, on ideas, practices, and policies that define and delimit the borders of these bodies.

Chair:  Peter Erickson, Northwestern University