Patricia Akhimie – författare

Premodern critical race studies, long intertwined with Shakespeare studies, has broadened our understanding of the definitions and discourse of race and racism to include not only phenotype, but also religious and political identity, regional, national, and linguistic difference, and systems of differentiation based upon culture and custom. Replete with fresh readings of the plays and poems, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race brings together some of the most important scholars thinking about the subject today. The volume offers a thorough overview of the most significant theoretical and methodological paradigms such as critical race theory, feminist, and postcolonial studies; a dynamic look at intersections of race with queer, trans, disability, and indigenous studies; and a vibrant array of new approaches from ecocriticism, to animality, and human rights, from book history, to scholarly editing, and repertory studies; and an exploration of Shakespeare and race in our contemporary moment through discussions of political activism, pedagogy, visual arts, film, and theatre. Woven through the collection are the voices of practicing theatre professionals who have grappled with the challenges of race and racism both in performance and in the profession itself.

Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference reveals the relationship between racial discrimination and the struggle for upward social mobility in the early modern world. Reading Shakespeare’s plays alongside contemporaneous conduct literature - how-to books on self-improvement - this book demonstrates the ways that the pursuit of personal improvement was accomplished by the simultaneous stigmatization of particular kinds of difference. The widespread belief that one could better, or cultivate, oneself through proper conduct was coupled with an equally widespread belief that certain markers (including but not limited to "blackness"), indicated an inability to conduct oneself properly, laying the foundation for what we now call "racism." A careful reading of Shakespeare’s plays reveals a recurring critique of the conduct system voiced, for example, by malcontents and social climbers like Iago and Caliban, and embodied in the struggles of earnest strivers like Othello, Bottom, Dromio of Ephesus, and Dromio of Syracuse, whose bodies are bruised, pinched, blackened, and otherwise indelibly marked as uncultivatable. By approaching race through the discourse of conduct, this volume not only exposes the epistemic violence toward stigmatized others that lies at the heart of self-cultivation, but also contributes to the broader definition of race that has emerged in recent studies of cross-cultural encounter, colonialism, and the global early modern world.

Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference reveals the relationship between racial discrimination and the struggle for upward social mobility in the early modern world. Reading Shakespeare’s plays alongside contemporaneous conduct literature - how-to books on self-improvement - this book demonstrates the ways that the pursuit of personal improvement was accomplished by the simultaneous stigmatization of particular kinds of difference. The widespread belief that one could better, or cultivate, oneself through proper conduct was coupled with an equally widespread belief that certain markers (including but not limited to "blackness"), indicated an inability to conduct oneself properly, laying the foundation for what we now call "racism." A careful reading of Shakespeare’s plays reveals a recurring critique of the conduct system voiced, for example, by malcontents and social climbers like Iago and Caliban, and embodied in the struggles of earnest strivers like Othello, Bottom, Dromio of Ephesus, and Dromio of Syracuse, whose bodies are bruised, pinched, blackened, and otherwise indelibly marked as uncultivatable. By approaching race through the discourse of conduct, this volume not only exposes the epistemic violence toward stigmatized others that lies at the heart of self-cultivation, but also contributes to the broader definition of race that has emerged in recent studies of cross-cultural encounter, colonialism, and the global early modern world.

Recovers a previously hidden theater and performance history of Black women engaging with Shakespeare as actors, playwrights, costume designers, and directors.This catalog documents and expands on the Folger Institute’s 2026 exhibition To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, curated by Dr. Patricia Akhimie, the Director of the Folger Institute and an internationally recognized scholar in the field of premodern critical race studies. To Hear Her Speak explores the presence of Black women in the early modern world, the histories of Black women in Shakespearean performance both on and off stage, and how Black women as writers, thinkers, and artists have utilized Shakespeare's language, forms, stories, and characters for their own purposes and to diverse ends. Akhimie shares how these women, their histories, and their cultures are represented (and misrepresented) through the eyes of early modern European artists and writers, and allows readers to listen for and learn from the voices of Black women in a wide variety of forms of expression.

Recovers a previously hidden theater and performance history of Black women engaging with Shakespeare as actors, playwrights, costume designers, and directors.This catalog documents and expands on the Folger Institute’s 2026 exhibition To Hear Her Speak: Black Women and Shakespeare, curated by Dr. Patricia Akhimie, the Director of the Folger Institute and an internationally recognized scholar in the field of premodern critical race studies. To Hear Her Speak explores the presence of Black women in the early modern world, the histories of Black women in Shakespearean performance both on and off stage, and how Black women as writers, thinkers, and artists have utilized Shakespeare's language, forms, stories, and characters for their own purposes and to diverse ends. Akhimie shares how these women, their histories, and their cultures are represented (and misrepresented) through the eyes of early modern European artists and writers, and allows readers to listen for and learn from the voices of Black women in a wide variety of forms of expression.