We are Othello: Speaking of race in early modern studies

This essay probes our scholarly commitment to Shakespeare at a time when contemporary racial politics continues to test our resolve in mobilizing our scholarship in the cause of a just society. An intense public debate over the deaths of unarmed black persons has emerged at a time when the thesis of a post-racial, colorblind America had inserted itself into mainstream thinking as evidence of the growing sentiment to move beyond race and to erase its explicit and violent history. Among the most striking findings arising from the documentation of these killings is the split in the public reaction along distinctly racial lines. Othello’s dying speech raises related concerns insofar as he is anxiously aware of the possible outcome of having a white narrator tell his story. Such a narrator, the essay argues, is a prototype for the modern scholar in a majority white field like Shakespeare studies who must confront new data pertaining to white privilege and bias in the United States. Hazlitt and subsequent critics appear to have little difficulty affirming that “it is we who are Hamlet,” but the same has not been true of black Othello. By contrast, the essay’s appeal, “We are Othello,” is meant to disrupt the silence around whiteness in order to make visible and productively politicize the subject identities of critical practitioners in the field.

Title	We are Othello: Speaking of race in early modern studies
Creator	Smith, Ian D.
Publisher	Shakespeare Quarterly
Academic Department	English
Division	Humanities
Organization	Lafayette College
Date Issued	2016
Date Available	2016-08-22T15:43:42Z
Type	Article
Language	English
Bibliographic Citation	Smith, I. D. (2016) "We are Othello: Speaking of race in early modern studies." Shakespeare Quarterly 67 (1): 104-124.
Standard Identifier	DOI 10.1353/shq.2016.0000
Standard Identifier	Handle 10385/2132
Permalink	http://hdl.handle.net/10385/2132
Rights Statement	In Copyright
Rights Holders	Folger Shakespeare Library