These assignments, created by Ambereen Dadabhoy, can function as a semester-long sequence of assignments which ask students to engage in close readings to construct strong, thoughtful arguments rooted in their own insights. The sequence starts with a demonstration of close reading, moves into an analysis of a trope’s mobility in time, and ends with an original piece of writing that uses these skills to interrogate a contemporary instance of Orientalism. By the end of the semester, students successfully participate in their own knowledge production and create a methodology to interpret texts and the issues they see in their world today.  

The rhetorical and political service of tropes in Shakespeare  

Assignment 1

Explicit Muslim presence in Shakespeare is almost nil. However, the influence of early modern England’s cultural understanding of Muslim and Arab people is embedded in Shakespeare’s texts. To illuminate these subtextual meanings, we must decode the ways Shakespeare conjures Islam and Muslim tropes in his texts. One example of this is in Shakespeare's use of the word “Turk,” usually in some version of the phrase “turning Turk.” By employing the identity or idea of the “Turk,” Shakespeare is communicating something to his audience—something already legible to early modern English people, requiring little explanation.  

To introduce this assignment, I demonstrate how to trace tropes in class. I ask my students first to use context clues to help them decipher what the word “Turk” is doing or signifying in the passage. Students look for words that imply or clearly state forms of Othering, like demonization or denigration. Then students free associate what “Turk” might mean to the audience and to themselves.  

Once we have a preliminary hypothesis of how “Turk” is being employed in the text, I provide historical material on Turks in early modern England to further consider what the trope might have meant for Shakespeare. We gather data from excerpts from:

• Dallam, Thomas. Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant: The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599-1600.
• de Nicolay, Nicolas. The Navigations, Peregrinations and Voyages Made into Turkie, 1585.
• Knolles, Richard. General History of the Turks, 1603.
• Rycaut, Paul. The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1668.
• Sandys, George. Relation of a Journey, 1610.

We then collectively build an argument about the utility of this trope in the speech or scene.

Following the steps we modeled in class, I ask students to choose another trope or referent, which can be an identity marker, a stage prop, or even a geographical allusion. Students write a 500-700 word argument that offers a claim on what ideological and cultural work this referent (or series of referents) is doing in the play, and how their identified trope relates to the play's larger thematic concerns.  

Through this assignment, students understand the kind of rhetorical and political service these seemingly insignificant tropes are performing in the play and Shakespeare's canon more broadly. This initial writing acts as the foundation for the development of an argument they will explore and articulate throughout the semester.  

Troping Islam  

Assignment 2  

In his seminal work, Orientalism, Edward Said identifies the familiar repertoire from which the Orientalist draws and rehearses his knowledge about the Orient. Utilizing the metaphor of the stage, Said writes,  

The idea of representation is a theatrical one: the Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe. … In the depths of this Oriental stage stands a prodigious cultural repertoire whose individual items evoke a fabulously rich world (63). 

In this assignment, students trace Orientalist terms in premodern literature to recognize how Islam is articulated as a concept. Students are asked to identify an Orientalist trope in a medieval text and follow it through two early modern texts.  

Students should identify how and why the trope changes (if it does) according to the shifting political relations of the periods. Their argument must explain what the ideological or cultural purpose in depicting Islam in this way seems to be, and what makes the chosen trope significant.  This assignment allows students to create temporal linkages between texts, tracing the development of a particular trope and its deployment through time. By learning to read through vast swaths of time, students develop the necessary analytical and argumentation skills to take stock of their contemporary worlds.  

21st century Orientalism as trope 

Assignment 3

Using the methodologies, research, and analysis employed in the last two assignments, students will exercise their ability to construct a well-researched argument and turn their understanding of the past to deconstruct an issue in their present moment. This short paper assignment requires students to explore the ramifications of the mobilization of Orientalism and make connections between their study of the early modern period and our contemporary moment.  

In this assignment, students find an instance of contemporary Orientalism (within the last five years) and explain why it exemplifies an Orientalist depiction. These instances of Orientalism can be derived from any media the student chooses, including literature, news media, social media, political rhetoric, etc. The paper should discuss the ideological purpose of the chosen depiction and its utility for an identified target audience.  

Students are expected to cite Said and at least one of the primary texts the class has considered. This analysis, much like that of the second assignment, asks students to track the mobility of their chosen trope through time and space. Students should note the differences in the representations and offer an argument to explain shifts in the cultural work that these representations are performing.  

Through this assignment, students can see that Orientalism remains vital to how the West understands itself and constructs the alterity of Muslim difference. These assignments in sequence ask students to construct a well-researched and thoughtful argument in stages, allowing them to exercise the skill of developing an idea to a scholarly analysis.