Description

• Title:
  Interpreting Othello in the Arabian Gulf: Shakespeare in a Time of Blackface Controversies
• Creator:
  Hennessey, Katherine
• Contributor:
  Assistant Professor of English, American University of Kuwait, and (in 2020) Research Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities;
  hennessey818@gmail.com
• Description:
  This article opens with some brief observations on the phenomenon of Arab blackface—that is, of Arab actors “blacking up” to impersonate black Arab or African characters—from classic cinematic portrayals of the warrior-poet Antara Ibn Shaddad to more recent deployments of blackface in the Arab entertainment industry. It then explores the complex nexus of race, gender, citizenship and social status in the Arabian Gulf as context for a critical reflection on the author’s experience of reading and discussing Othello with students at the American University of Kuwait—discussions which took place in the fall of 2019, in the midst of a wave of controversies sparked by instances of Arab blackface on television and in social media.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Rights: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
• Date:
  2021.08.10;
  2020.12.30
• Type:
  Article
• Language:
  English
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Relation:
  Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance;37;
  22
• Subject:
  Shakespeare;
  Othello;
  Antara Ibn Shaddad;
  blackface;
  Arab blackface;
  Kuwait;
  Egypt;
  Arab/ic film and theatre;
  Arabian Gulf
• Identifier:
  2083-8530;
  http://hdl.handle.net/11089/38615 ;
  2300-7605;
  10.18778/2083-8530.22.07
• Data provider:
  Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Can I use it?:
  check license
• Type:
  image