Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America

“This book is about how 19th and then 20th century America took on Shakespeare’s plays and re-engineered them to speak to the two sides of the Civil War, for instance, as well as post-Civil War questions. It looks at how black theatre companies and black actors, from Ira Aldridge (1807-1867) to Paul Robeson (1898-1976), became prominent in Shakespearean theater. She gives us not an alternative history—that would suggest that there is a true history—but shows us that Shakespeare has been, and continues to be, a part of discussions about race right through the history of America. When I went back to this book, it gave me a context for why American culture wars are still preoccupied by Shakespeare and why when your graduate school takes down a picture of Shakespeare and puts up a picture of Audre Lorde or Zora Neale Hurston (say) it becomes a crisis. She helped me to see how it is that at a point of extreme polarization in American politics, Shakespeare is always part of the discussions.” Read more...

The best books on Shakespeare’s Reception

Emma Smith, Literary Scholar