Book Review - Shakespeare, Race and Anglophone Popular Culture edited by Mark Thornton Burnett , Vanessa I. Corredera , L. Monique Pittman

Book review by Anagha Gopal

Shakespeare, Race and Anglophone Popular Culture (2026) edited by Vanessa I. Corredera and L. Monique Pittman operates at the intersections of Shakespeare, race, and popular culture. What sets the book apart is its engagement with references to Shakespeare that may not at first glance seem to be significant to the texts that they are in. However, as the editors acknowledge, popular culture references are how the majority of people come into contact with Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays themselves have historically been seen as both popular culture and high culture at different times, thus becoming a key point for reflecting on the boundaries between these categories. The editors emphasize that this classification depends in part on who adapts, performs, and interacts with these texts.

The book takes up popular culture texts that are authorized and are intended to reach broad audiences, including films, novels, children’s books, parenting manuals, and streaming TV. Its central question revolves around the role played by popular culture references to and adaptations of Shakespeare in ‘Western racial formations’ (6).The editors are well-established in studies of Shakespeare, adaptation, race, and gender and their methodology and theoretical outlook are informed by their previous work on race and adaptations of Shakespeare. The book is anchored by Premodern Critical Race Studies and Michel de Certau’s concept of ‘poaching’, where Shakespare is temporarily displaced from its canonical status by entering popular culture, thus allowing hierarchies of power to be questioned (17). The book is part of the Shakespeare and Adaptation series by the publisher, which is known for diverse research methods, forms, and contexts of adaptations.

Such diversity of methods and forms is visible in this volume. Dawkins analyses Hamlet, Lion King, and Beyoncé's Black is King synchronically (simultaneously, without privileging one text) to show how intertexts can transform racist narratives from the past. Sasser on the other hand shows how adaptations - including children’s books - can reinforce racist notions in Shakespeare instead of challenging them. Chapters show how adaptation and positionality can be nuanced and even complicated, as is evidenced in Tran’s comparative analysis of Amy Chua’s and Ken Ludwig’s parenting memoirs. Tran shows how, while Chua’s memoir, which rejects Shakespeare, was received as racial and even abusive, Ludwig’s memoir - which, in teaching Shakespeare, practices a strictness similar to Chua’s - escapes such criticism.

Another interesting method can be found in Votava’s essay, which analyses the Coen brothers’ Macbeth through the lens of a postmenopausal Lady Macbeth played by Frances McDormand, arguing that this casting choice challenges ideas of white futurity in the play. McDormand’s previous performances in Coen brothers’ films are vital intertexts for this argument. Lauby analyses a novel by Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton to show how it presents race as a shifting rather than an essential category, but at the same time practices anti-Black and anti-Native American racism. Lauby’s essay uses rhizomatic theory as a framework, which considers multiple, intersecting adaptations of Shakespeare. This method is also used in Friedman’s analysis of Station Eleven.

Friedman shows how the TV series adaptation builds on the critique received by the novel about privileging white futurity, yet falls short in its project. Montgomery and Rapatz, and Mookherjee analyse an episode of Dickinson and Book 2 and Season 2 of Bridgerton respectively, drawing focus to how Shakespeare appears in shows on streaming platforms with race-conscious casting which combine historical settings with 21st century ideas. Montgomery and Rapatz argue that Emily Dicksinson engages in a version of contemporary white allyship in the show, and Mookherjee points out how Bridgerton centres visual and cultural elements from India but does not address colonialism even while being set in Regency England. All three essays highlight how the way forward for shows on streaming platforms is to involve a more sustained and critical engagement with representation in race-conscious adaptations.

Analysing a range of texts, the book shows how adaptations and intertexts of Shakespeare can both challenge and reinforce racist notions in Shakespeare, and may sometimes do both. In doing so, it emphasizes the importance of popular culture as an archive for studying Shakespeare.

Byline:

Anagha Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru University

LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/anagha-gopal-4b607126b

Anagha Gopal is a PhD scholar at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She is working on representations of the child reader in 21st century Indian English Children’s Literature.