Shakespeare Revisited

Shakespeare has compelled audiences and readers and inspired other playwrights, authors, and performers for centuries, not just in the English-speaking world, but globally. This course will trace the ways in which different authors have revisited, revised, and remixed Shakespeare's texts in different forms and contexts over the centuries. We will study 19th century travesties that reimagine the text as comedy, 20th century novels, films, and theater performances/adaptations that delve into its reflections on human subjectivity, and 21st century adaptations that situate it in contemporary global political conflicts. Each iteration of the course will explore one of Shakespeare's texts—"Hamlet," "The Tempest," and "Othello"—to interrogate wider ranging questions of adaptation and performance and as a means of interrogating the means and ends of the persistent drive to adapt Shakespeare. Students will have the opportunity to try themselves in the role of Shakespeare's co-authors, actors and directors, offering their own version of the reading/adaptation of the play under study.