Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes James Baldwin’s “race-conscious appropriative strategy” for engaging with William Shakespeare as one that foregrounds multiplicity and a Duboisian “double consciousness” that mitigates Shakespeare’s presumed and mistakenly called universalism. It examines how adaptations and appropriations of Shakespeare’s drama play out in postcolonial settings, with attention paid to multiple discourses of otherness, whether it takes the form of immigrants in exile, visual interplay of naked and clothed, or the linguistic patois of oppressed peoples. The book describes the role that global forms of Shakespearean appropriation can play and have played in both virtual and face-to-face learning environments. It also examines appropriations of Shakespeare in multimedia contexts and the figuration of the Shakespearean text as scattered leaves in film and stage productions.