ENGL 467 B2: Reading Early Modern Race and Alterity

L. Schechter

This course examines early modern depictions of race and alterity, asking how the early modern English culture imagined or understood foreignness, and interrogating our own modern readings of alterity in these texts. While race will be the focus of conversation, related issues of economic status, gender, religion, and sexuality will be considered often. Class texts will primarily be written by English authors, but non-English, translated voices will be considered when feasible; recent literary theory and criticism will also be integrated into class discussion. Together, the class will consider the ways in which imagining alterity contributed to the shaping (and perhaps the solidification or stabilization) of a sense of Englishness.