Shakespeare's Birthday Lecture | Dr. Patricia Akhimie: “The Goodness of the Night: Editing Othello”

Every year, in commemoration of William Shakespeare’s birthday, the Folger invites a scholar to speak about Shakespeare and early modern life.

In her talk, Akhimie explores the ways strategic editing choices, such as omission and correction, produce and perpetuate racial stereotypes in Shakespeare’s "Othello." These editing practices have both obscured the lived experiences of readers and redoubled the effect of racist words, phrases, and ideas that identify others as different and lesser—in the text, on the stage, and in the world. By exposing the race-making effects of textual editing, Dr. Akhimie’s work empowers a more diverse set of readers and thinkers to engage with "Othello."

[zippyspring]

Wow! Thank you kindly, Dr. Akhimie for outlining so clearly what is at stake in our modern reading(s) of Othello, and its echoes with a non post-racial world. And thank you for illustrating so brilliantly how to do close readings for an audience who might not be familiar with the play. Make it plain!!