Chris Klippenstein

This course is built around contemporary Shakespearean revisions in our own historical moment: modern plays, all written in the past 30 years, that reframe canonical Shakespearean tragedies from the perspectives of neglected daughters, humble servants, anonymous soldiers, and other characters who were relegated to the background in their original contexts. More than simply examining Shakespeare in a new setting, we will explore prequels, sequels, and retellings that use marginalized racial, class, and gender perspectives to breathe radical new life into canonical tragedies, including Macbeth and Othello. As a class, we will strive to develop a nuanced vocabulary for the relationships between Shakespearean tragedies and their present-day reimaginings. Along the way, we will explore questions of adaptation, genre, and social identity. Readings will include Zinnie Harris's Macbeth (an undoing) (2023), Toni Morrison's Desdemona (2012), David Grieg's Dunsinane (2010), and Djanet Sears's Harlem Duet (1997). What is it about Shakespeare that continues to speak, so urgently, to our own time and place? How does re-centering marginalized voices help to reclaim, reimagine, or reproduce tragic modes? And how might we critically position texts, like Keith Hamilton Cobb's Off-Broadway hit American Moor (2019), that reflect on Shakespearean plays themselves as objects of study and engagement?

Witches, devils, familiars, and fairies—according to popular belief, the world of Renaissance England was swarming with supernatural forces who were ready to bless, curse, meddle, and strike dangerous bargains with unwary mortals. This theatre-focused course will approach the early modern supernatural from three key perspectives: social, literary, and scientific. Delving into Shakespearean classics like Macbeth and The Tempest—as well as the magnificent Ford, Dekker, and Rowley play The Witch of Edmonton, Greene's rival magicians Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, the surprising werewolf of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, and others—we will explore the role of stage effects, costume, props, and other early modern theatrical devices in bringing supernatural forces to life. Drawing on the 17th century's fascination with geographical exploration and scientific discovery, we will read Jonson's The Alchemist alongside prose imaginings of lunar voyages (Godwin's The Man in the Moone) and extraterrestrial journeys (Cavendish's The Blazing World) that articulate early modern anxieties and opportunities about a rapidly expanding world and its unexpected inhabitants. Throughout the semester, we will draw particular attention to the humans who were believed to have special access to supernatural forces. How do gender, race, and social class intersect with contemporary fears about power and vulnerability through magical means? And how can we use these texts to develop a more nuanced conceptual understanding of the natural, the supernatural, and the unnatural in early modern England? (Readings are subject to change, but they will all be fabulous.)