Dadabhoy, Ambereen. "All Our Othellos: Shakespeare and the War on Terror." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/shakespeare-and-the-war-on-terror. [Date accessed].
Shakespeare and the War on Terror
Showing how teaching our existing narratives of European and English encounters with Islam might affirm stereotypes of what it means to be Muslim in lieu of destabilizing them.
All Our Othellos: Shakespeare and the War on Terror | Watch the full talk
Presented by Ambereen Dadabhoy at Education: A RaceB4Race Symposium in 2021
Ambereen Dadabhoy investigates the long history of the logics of the War on Terror and how these structure narratives about Muslims across the centuries. Here, she engages the question with reference to Shakespeare’s Othello, the portraiture of Velazquez (1599-1660), Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012), and contemporary discourses of white supremacy. Dadabhoy’s talk draws upon the connective tissue between these cultural fragments to show how teaching our existing narratives of European and English encounters with Islam might affirm stereotypes of what it means to be Muslim in lieu of destabilizing them.
Further learning
Recommended
Blackness and Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare’s works at large, and early modern literature more broadly, all deal with constructions of race. Shakespeare’s sonnets are especially fruitful for considering how the languages of fairness and darkness are used in nuanced ways to develop particular understandings of race.
Henry V and belonging
Shakespeare's language and status in the Western canon can feel inhospitable to many students, especially students of color. Teaching Henry V with a focus on linguistic identity, legitimacy, and belonging can open conversations that allow students to carve out a Shakespeare for themselves.
