Shakespeare's White Others

Summary

Examining the racially white 'others' whom Shakespeare creates in characters like Richard III, Hamlet, and Tamora—figures who are never quite 'white enough'—this bold and compelling work emphasizes how such classification perpetuates anti-Blackness and reaffirms white supremacy. David Sterling Brown offers nothing less here than a wholesale deconstruction of whiteness in Shakespeare's plays, arguing that the 'white other' was a racialized category already in formation during the Elizabethan era—and also one to which Shakespeare was himself a crucial contributor. In exploring Shakespeare's determinative role and strategic investment in identity politics (while drawing powerfully on his own life experiences, including adolescence), the author argues that even as Shakespearean theatrical texts functioned as engines of white identity formation, they expose the illusion of white racial solidarity. This essential contribution to Shakespeare studies, critical whiteness studies, and critical race studies is an authoritative, urgent dismantling of dramatized racial profiling.

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