English 231: Introduction to Shakespeare: Race, Nationality, and Power

“What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?” asks the enraged Irish captain MacMorris, speaking in dialect as he confronts the Welsh captain Fluellen in Shakespeare’s Henry V. Not only in his history plays, but in his comedies, tragedies, and romances, Shakespeare explores both how race, ethnicity, and nationality are constructed and how these concepts shape individual identities and social interactions. Shakespeare not only worked to define what it meant to be “English” in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but helped to shape the English language itself—which only a tiny percentage of the world’s population spoke at the time he wrote his plays—into England’s most powerful global export. The course will introduce students to college-level study of Shakespeare’s poetry and plays, with particular attention to the themes of race, nationality, and power. May be taken for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major or minor.