About the Course
Intended primarily for non-English majors, this course is designed to provide an understanding of drama as a form of literary art and to encourage a familiarity with Shakespeare's most important works. Plays from each dramatic genre (comedy, history and tragedy) will be included.
- Analyze how socially-dependent prejudicial practices impact Shakespeare studies and your own intellectual life.
- Investigate how literary theorists have engaged similar questions of race, gender, physiognomy, and class by reading excerpts from literary criticism which enlist a range of critical methodologies.
- Learn strategies for reading texts, like Shakespeare’s, whose language can at times feel difficult and unfamiliar.
- Explore how Shakespeare conceptualizes differences of race, gender, physiognomy, class, and nation in his work.