Espinosa, Ruben. "Student approaches to adaptations of Shakespeare." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/student-adaptations-shakespeare. [Date accessed].

Student approaches to adaptations of Shakespeare

Students use Shakespeare to interrogate contemporary social justice issues.

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Ruben Espinosa
Arizona State University

In this assignment, Ruben Espinosa offers a creative entry point for students to engage with Shakespeare. Students produce a short film that must touch on a national or local social justice issue using dialogue from one of the plays they’ve studied in class. By focusing these adaptations on students’ interests and communities, students are given the opportunity to question who is allowed access to Shakespeare and consider how these plays are often weaponized against marginalized populations.

Foul and Fair - an example student production

La Muerte de Ofelia - an example student production

Further learning

Video

Immigration and Henry V

Ruben Espinosa draws attention to how the English language and the production of English identity are troubled in Henry V and asks students to reimagine their relationship with the Bard and his legacy.

Ruben Espinosa
Essay

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.

Ruben Espinosa
Syllabus

Revising the Shakespeare survey

Ruben Espinosa's annotated syllabus offers entry points to broaching conversations about race and racism within a course that isn’t necessarily devoted to Shakespeare and critical race studies.

Ruben Espinosa

Recommended

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
Video

Race in Hamlet: The violent Black man myth

Rather than try to tell a sociological story about the "violent Black man" myth, we can examine one instance of this racial mythmaking in a widely studied, influential literary forebear: Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

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