Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

How did early modern England understand race and how has that influenced our thinking? Race is often considered a recent construct, but Shakespeare’s works—both his plays and poetry—reveal a diverse world already aware of race, identity, and difference. In this episode, Patricia Akhimie, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, discusses the growing field of study and what we can learn from it. She is joined by two of the scholars contributing essays to the guide, Dennis Britton and Kirsten Mendoza, who are exploring the ways race, gender, and power intersect in Shakespeare’s long narrative poems. Britton examines Venus and Adonis, investigating how Shakespeare’s portrayal of beauty, fairness, and desire upends traditional thinking about sexuality and race. Mendoza focuses on human rights in The Rape of Lucrece, revealing how Shakespeare’s use of color symbolism exposes early modern ideas about race, gender, and bodily autonomy. Both scholars illuminate how Shakespeare’s works have encoded ide