Smith, Ian. "Race in Hamlet: The violent Black man myth." www.throughlines.org/suite-content/race-in-hamlet-the-violent-black-man-myth. [Date accessed].

Race in Hamlet: The violent Black man myth

A dissection of the "violent Black man myth" and its early deployment in Hamlet.

Download the transcript
Ian Smith
University of Southern California

Race in the modern era has seen the circulation of the violent Black man stereotype that has been promoted through his criminalization in the “War on Drugs,” his overrepresentation in mass incarceration, and the deprivation of his life in extrajudicial shootings. Too often the recurrent theme and justification is that the Black man poses a threat, so criminalization, imprisonment, and death are offered as modern prevention strategies. How did we get here? Rather than try to tell a sociological story, we can examine one instance of this racial mythmaking in a widely studied, influential literary forebear: Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Further learning

Essay

Hamlet and the color of criminality

Bringing Hamlet into a recognizable universe of modern concerns and asking students to think about the demands reading Shakespeare and race places on them as 21st-century thinkers.

Ian Smith
Reading list

Reading the violent Black man myth in Hamlet

Suggested readings from Ian Smith for interrogating the role of race and the violent Black man myth in Hamlet.

Ian Smith

Recommended

Reading list

Teaching racialized genders

Early modern Turk plays, travel narratives, medical writings, and drama are rich sources of this history of racialization. This reading list compiled by Abdulhamit Arvas offers useful excerpts and critical analysis to include in your syllabus.

Abdulhamit Arvas
Video

Witnessing whiteness in the early modern world

It is crucial to scrutinize whiteness when exploring early modern constructions of social difference with students. Students are not often taught to see issues of white privilege and power.

Kim F. Hall
Essay

Navigating mixed-race identities in Shakespeare

Titus Andronicus is a play that demonstrates early modern English dexterity with racial constructs. This nuance is demonstrated in part through its representations of racial mixing and mixed-race identity.

Kyle Grady