Category: Issue 3

To speak of civility at the present moment is to intervene in a vexed and often vicious debate. When, in November 2016, the cast of Hamilton took to the stage to urge the incoming administration to “uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us,” it sparked a firestorm of public debate, some generative—about the […]

IAGO: And what’s he then that says I play the villain, When this advice is free I give and honest … (William Shakespeare, Othello, 2.3.324-25) *** I didn’t do anything. I was just being honest (Lee Garrett, The Bachelorette, season 13, episode 5) In 2017, ABC’s The Bachelorette “made history,” as both the show’s own promotional […]

Before Othello commits suicide, Lodovico tells him: Your power and your command is taken off …You shall close prisoner rest, Till that the nature of your fault be known To the Venetian state. In response to this edict of Venetian jurisdiction—to erase identity, to imprison indefinitely, to declare fault—Othello, the “Moor of Venice,” declares that he has […]

Research projects always bear some intimate relation to one’s personal life and persistent preoccupations. The collaborative project I am beginning with Henry Turner about new understandings of the concept of “world” in the plays of William Shakespeare is no exception. This project had multiple origins and inspirations, but a primary motivation for me—often kept private—was […]

Sometimes it happens that you unexpectedly discover something in the world that resonates strongly with you, in an immediate and therefore also somehow in an intimate way; something that speaks to you but also feels totally new to you, and that’s part of the difficulty. How can something be both new and familiar at the […]

At a global moment rife with militarized borders, unease over refugees, and anti-immigration rhetoric, Meghan Markle’s royal marriage to Prince Harry provided a timely opportunity to showcase the inclusivity of the historically exclusionary white monarchy. Several aspects of the ceremony foregrounded blackness: for example, the significant position that Markle’s black mother, Doria Ragland, occupied; the […]

  Elisa Oh is an Associate Professor of English at Howard University, where she teaches British literature, Shakespeare, and literary theory.  Her research interests include women and silence, letters, and early modern drama. Her current book project, Choreographies of Race and Gender: Dance, Travel, and Ritual in Early Modern English Literature 1558-1642, examines the cultural processes […]

On January 19, 2019, the third iteration of the Women’s March took place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The now-annual protest defines itself as a woman-led movement dedicated to uniting diverse women in social struggle and dismantling systems of oppression. The first March (held on January 21, 2017–one day after President Trump’s […]

Various Western politicians and feminists continue to scrutinize Muslim women and make them and their hijab a site of racialization. Recently, Boris Johnson said this about Muslim women’s hijab: “it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.” He continued by asserting that if “a female student turned up at […]

In a historic vote made in March 2018, the Philippines House of Representatives passed Bill 7303, “An Act Instituting Absolute Divorce and Dissolution of Marriage in the Philippines.” In “Guiding Principles” Section 3.4 of the bill, legislators underscore that “the option to file for absolute divorce is a pro-woman legislation because in most cases, it […]

Scholars and theatre professionals have long questioned the viability of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew for the modern stage. Again and again, directors, actors, and academics have called out the comedic presentation of abuses Katherine endures at the hands of Petruchio and other men in the play as reprehensible. Stagings today often choose to play up […]