Dr. Jo Carney
Monday/Thursday: 2:00pm-3:20pm
What are the many ways in which Shakespeare lives on in contemporary culture? Beginning with theories of intertextuality—in part, the notion that books are made of other books, of the “already-written”—this seminar will explore the afterlives of Shakespeare’s plays through the lens of adaptation and appropriation theory. We will focus on four plays—Othello, Lear, The Winter’s Tale, and Pericles—and then explore how contemporary fiction and film interrogate the racial, sexual, and class politics of these plays and rewrite them for our moment. Contemporary authors include Mark Haddon, Toni Morrison, and Jeanette Winterson.