Confessions: The consolations of literature

Abstract

This ‘confession’ begins with my journey as an early modern, Shakespearean scholar, from India to the Anglo-American academy. The Anglo-centric world that I entered was not particularly welcoming. However, my personal ‘otherness’ prompted my early critical interventions as I (among other scholars of color) began to view Shakespeare within the context of the emerging colonial and globalizing imaginary as well as the racial typologies of early modern England. Today, a more diverse (albeit still small) cohort of scholars is a broadening the contexts and contents, including topics covering productions of difference via a wide range of intersectional theoretical lenses. However, even as early modern studies are becoming more inclusive, liberal politics are stifling the rich Renaissance literature within identity politics and agendas, often not even historically grounded. An unintended consequence of this liberal agenda is that it encourages students to study literatures closely aligned to their own ethnic/racial group. And as we teach literature to nurture students’ identities, the danger lies in approaching literary works as sites for therapeutic effects. Instead, we should turn to literary works to imaginatively understand the productions of difference. In early modern studies, for instance, plays like Othello and The Tempest historicize and make visible anti-black racism, misogyny, patriarchy, and colonial servitude and exploitation.

postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies (2020) 11, 345–352.https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-020-00179-4