The Modern Worlds of William Shakespeare

The course explores William Shakespeare's influence on world literature, film, and music, investigating how Shakespeare's work spread from the Globe Theatre on the Southbank of London from the turn of the 17th century and continues to shape the arts with its language, characters, and themes in myriad global contexts across diverse media. Incorporating key discussions of politics, sex, feminism, race, violence, history, and gender, the course appraises the ongoing presence of Shakespeare's work across different continents. From the movies of India and the novels of France to the music of the United States and the drama of Latin America, each week demonstrates a major recasting of one of Shakespeare's works, examining original works and their reimagining in a fresh context from global culture. If his contemporary Ben Jonson famously wrote that Shakespeare was for "all time," this course goes further and examines his relevance to all places from the Elizabethan era to the present day.