“Santiago Matamoros” or Saint James the Moor Killer: Who Wants to Kill the Moor in William Shakespeare’s Othello?

Abstract

The question of race is a dynamic site where anxiety and colonialism manifest themselves in Shakespeare’s Othello. The first part of the research interrogates Othello as a complex construct shaped by the time’s cultural fashion about race. The study of the question of race from the paradigms of imagery and postcolonialism reveals that the building of Othello is backed by a well-constructed set of ideas unveiling a colonialist hegemonic discourse. The second part of the analysis challenges to go beyond a mere critical reception of the play according to postcolonialism by introducing a double-fold reflection: First, it is an invitation to recall the importance of aesthetic dimensions in reading texts from multicultural or political sides. The “transmigratory nature of the dramatic text” is used to call on injecting aesthetic alternatives while dealing with confrontations between cultures; it addresses the question of what happens when Othello is re-appropriated by North African stage directors. The focus on the Tunisian directors Tawfik Al Jibali’s and Muhammad Driss’ adaptations of Othello has allowed us to consider transmigrating theatre as an alternative to ideology and race in reading Othello. Second, it is a claim to review the reception of postcolonialism so that it would not service violence and terrorism but rather usher in post-postcolonialism and prepare the ground for what Jyotsna Singh has called “the Global Renaissance” and the “Global Shakespeare Movement”.

Keywords

• Othello
• postcolonialism
• transmigratory nature of dramatic texts
• Mohamed Driss and Tawfiq Al Jibali
• Global Renaissance

Supporting Institution

English Department, Faculty of Arts and Humanities of Sousse, University of Sousse

Thanks

To all the organizing committee of the ICELALTS international conference and Eurasian Journal of English Language and Literature

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