Barriers to Shakespeare Study

KIM HALL: There's a kind of well-known black feminist who I've heard, and unfortunately she's gone now so I can't ask her, but I heard was interested in doing a dissertation on Shakespeare and was told that that was not for her, that she should not be paying attention to Shakespeare, and the implication was both that it was too difficult for her, and also not part of her cultural property. And that's something that those of us who are African American, or of color, and teach Shakespeare deal with all the time. This kind of idea that A, it doesn't belong to African Americans, from more traditional circles, and from more, I don't know what to say, political and progressive circles, this idea that you should be working on African American authors. So you kind of lose out either way, from the extremes on either side.

I don't think people are told specifically, you're not allowed to interpret Shakespeare. But I think there are kind of subtle messages that somehow, you know, Shakespeare is not for you, or Shakespeare is not—that kind of exclude Shakespeare from your cultural heritage. So, you know, and I'll just say, when students come to my class and they're shocked that I'm black, that's a kind of subtle message.

To say that African Americans are not allowed to interpret Shakespeare kind of excludes them from that realm of value. It goes with a long history of denigrating blacks' intellectual capabilities. Because Shakespeare is difficult, and Shakespeare, you know, you obviously can't interpret. So it's this kind of weird, mixed message—on one hand, Shakespeare speaks to the human experience, but on the other hand, you can't adopt Shakespeare for your specific experience if you're African American. And somehow African Americans are not part of that universal experience which, you know, is then—in that frame of mind one sees that it's not universal, but it's about kind of a certain idea of white maleness.

What seems to not be wanted is the idea that the plays are deeply conflicted and engaged with a whole host of issues. You know, political issues, issues of gender, struggles over the place of women. You're supposed to teach Shakespeare as kind of already graven in marble and teach the worship of Shakespeare, rather than teach perhaps a more conflicted interaction with Shakespeare.