ABSTRACT
The spirit of 1968 had established a dissident liberatory tradition that continued to influence performance and criticism at the fin de siècle. Simultaneously, the period of political disillusionment, with the ascendancy of neoliberalism and conservative backlash, ushered in both triumphalism on the right, and postmodern skepticism on the left. Contestation over the play’s ideological purchase intensified to the extent that it became metonymic for political affiliation. This dichotomized climate produced a restoration of the integrative norm, variations on the disintegrative version unmoored from any revolutionary or progressive politics, and new iterations of the liberatory alternative. A stunning wave of appropriations by Black women writers (including Abena Busia, Michelle Cliff, May Joseph, Sylvia Wynter) drew attention to the play’s deep involvement in intersectional oppression around race, gender, and sexuality, forming what some have called the ‘Sycorax school.’ At the turn of the millennium, The Tempest became a template for mapping the linkages between early modern and contemporary dispossessions and resistance, as was seen most clearly in apocalyptic fin de siècle popular culture. The play was also taken up by activists in the global justice movement.
