{"id":12938,"date":"2018-06-19T14:56:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T18:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/?page_id=12938"},"modified":"2018-08-22T16:29:38","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T20:29:38","slug":"rooney-instructor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/journal\/past-issues\/issue-10\/rooney\/rooney-instructor\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Instructor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In crafting this masterful essay, Mari Rooney used her skills as a researcher and analyst to revitalize persistent questions about <em>Othello<\/em> and offer some intriguing new answers. I would bet that you have read or seen <em>Othello<\/em> and have some opinions about it\u2014but have you read the contemporary Renaissance tragedy <em>All\u2019s Lost by Lust<\/em> that similarly represents \u201cMoorish\u201d men? Or George Best\u2019s 1578 account that \u201cI myself have seene an Ethiopian \u2026 taking a fair Englishe woman to Wife\u201d? What about the bizarre descriptions of northern Africa from a German encyclopedia that Londoners read in translation after 1581? With impressive firsthand research into texts like these, Mari reinserts <em>Othello<\/em> firmly into its original historical context, and thus she arrives at a deep understanding of the ways the play responds to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discourses about race, gender, nationalism, and more. That research (impressive enough by itself) provides raw material for her own imaginative interpretations, and that\u2019s what allows us all to see the play anew; in her argument, Iago emerges as more than just Shakespeare\u2019s skillful portrayal of jealousy and villainy. Instead, Mari\u2019s essay demonstrates how the complex psychology of the character creates an ideological force-field where broad cultural problems intersect with old narrative tropes to fashion new socio-political possibilities. According to her argument, the play uses Iago to not merely <em>represent<\/em> racist prejudices, masculinist insecurities, and rhetorical constructions of non-Englishness, but to test them, critique them, re-evaluate them, and even weaken them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2014\u00a0LIAM MEYER<\/strong><br \/>\n<span>WR 150: Shakespearean Controversies<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In crafting this masterful essay, Mari Rooney used her skills as a researcher and analyst to revitalize persistent questions about Othello and offer some intriguing new answers. I would bet that you have read or seen Othello and have some opinions about it\u2014but have you read the contemporary Renaissance tragedy All\u2019s Lost by Lust that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":12903,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12998,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12938\/revisions\/12998"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}