Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America - Softcover

Ayanna Thompson is Associate Dean of Faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of English at Arizona State University. She specializes in Renaissance drama and focuses on issues of race and performance.

"A readable, argumentative discussion of race in a variety of works." --Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"Ayanna Thompson's exciting new book forges a much needed bridge between Shakespeare studies and the study of race. In addition to analyzing deftly contemporary productions of Shakespeare, Passing Strange steps outside of convention and insightfully considers contemporary films and other performances that merely reference the Bard. In so doing Thompson boldly interrogates how race politics can inform our understanding of Shakespeare as well as how Shakespeare can impact our understanding of race. This is an important new work for scholars, students, and practitioners alike." --Harry J. Elam Jr., Editor of African American Performance and Theater History

"This terrific book marks an important step forward in Shakespeare scholarship. With skill and passion, Ayanna Thompson argues that the discussion of Shakespeare and race needs to move beyond the venerable Shakespeare-plus-theme model. By staging the relationship between contemporary race studies and Shakespeare in the American present as a spirited dialogue between true equals, Passing Strange demonstrates how fully matters of race matter in the ways we teach, perform, use, and watch Shakespeare." --Douglas Lanier, author of Shakespeare and Popular Culture

"Shakespeare never fails to ignite our idealism while remaining the great poet of compromise, disappointment, and failed hopes. This book is a report on Shakespeare at the coalface of contemporary America. Carefully observing with clarity and compassion the way Americans see themselves in Shakespeare's mirror, Ayanna Thompson subtly unravels hypocrisies, confusions and complications across a range of noble and ignoble motives that are by turns illuminating, chastening, and sometimes hard-to-watch. Its radical inclusivity and clear-headedness make Passing Strange a cause for hope, and a model for artistic and social redemption." --Peter Sellars, theater director

"Ambitious...Recommended." --Choice

"Represents a profound shift in the field...Likely to remain relevant for a long time precisely because of [Thompson's] interest in methodology and ethics. I suspect that this book will gain a wide audience of scholars and educators, directors, actors, students, or anyone interested in the relationships among Shakespeare, contemporary culture, and social justice." --Comparative Drama

"By probing, questioning, and teasing out assumptions, [Thompson] moves the reader toward a complex understanding of the instability of our conceptions of Shakespeare and of race in a book that is clearly written, well researched, and fearlessly argued." --Shakespeare Quarterly

"What is unique about this book is that it is the first to offer a sustained examination of Shakespeare and race as seen in and as a part of all the venues mentioned in its table of contents." --Shakespeare Newsletter

"[An] exciting book...Thompson expands the possibilities for scholars and practitioners of Shakespeare and popular culture." --Theatre Journal