ABSTRACT
The infamous image of a hooded Iraqi prisoner, arms outstretched, electrodes attached to limbs and genitals by the torturer, should give pause to all students of Japan who have served as intellectual spear bearers for the American imperium. That broken image conjures up the pathetic fate of the raped and butchered Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s most brutal and unforgiving play. At the apogee of American empire, Shakespeare’s unsparing critique of Rome and its imperial pretensions, has never been more relevant because the proponents of the war on terrorism may yet plunge the entire planet into the heart of a new imperial darkness.
