Ayanna Thompson

Empire and gender in Titus Andronius

Titus Andronicus exposes how empire shapes gender. Tamora’s vilified fertility contrasts Lavinia’s enforced silence, revealing how both motherhood and chastity are distorted within imperial power and revenge.

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Race and empire in Titus Andronicus

Aaron the Moor stands at the center of Titus Andronicus as both an architect of its violence and a self-aware, and self-possessed character, shaped by racial realities. Aaron exposes how empire constructs racialization.

Indecorum and empire in Titus Andronicus

The gore, violence, and revenge fantasy depicted in Titus Andronicus is usually the first (and sometimes last) thing that people talk about. But it's rarely examined to understand the diliberate questions at stake in the play. Namely, what does it mean for a society to cease to behave decorously?

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Teaching race in Titus Andronicus

Helping students make sense of race in Titus Andronicus with a strategic framework for in-class discussion.

Titus Andronicus as the gateway drug

Students believe they know what Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet or Macbeth mean, but rarely do those “meanings” stem from the students’ close engagements with the texts. Using Titus Andronicus at the beginning of any Shakespeare class forces students to experience Shakespeare anew.

How to talk about race in the classroom

Ayanna Thompson discusses how PCRS in the classroom starts with students and teachers being comfortable talking frankly about the reality of race in their lives as well as in the texts they encounter.