Global Shakespeare

More than 400 years ago, William Shakespeare wrote plays for a theater in London he named The Globe. Today, Shakespeare's plays are a global phenomenon—performed, studied, and enjoyed across the world in many languages and multiple media. How did this happen? This course explores the historical contexts of Shakespeare's plays, written at time of increased cross-cultural contact and global imagining, alongside the playwright's worldwide contemporary legacy, through productions and adaptations from the United States, England, Russia, India, Brazil, Japan, and China. We consider the cultural and political factors that transformed Shakespeare into one of the most widely known writers in the world and investigate how his plays have been retold and re-imagined by artists, writers, playwrights in the modern era. How do contemporary versions of Shakespeare negotiate between old and new, local and global, canonicity and cultural plurality? What can the story of Shakespeare's worldwide reach tell us about global culture now? Through close readings of five plays (Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Twelfth Night, and King Lear), and adaptations by Vishal Bhardwaj, Toni Morrison, Feng Xiaogang, Fernando Mello de Costa, Tim Carroll, Emma Rice, Grigori Kozintsev, and Akira Kurosawa, students gain a better understanding of the artistic power of Shakespearean drama and Shakespeare's role in the politics of culture today. Students may not take both ENGL S-138 and ENGL S-151 (offered previously) for degree or certificate credit.