Latest news with #BirthplaceTrust
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘De-colonizing' Shakespeare: Experts blame ‘white supremacy' for playwright's fame as hometown museum vows change
To be — or most definitely — not to be. Regarded as the most influential writer in the English language, some of William Shakespeare's work is now viewed by critics as racist, sexist and homophobic. As a result, the Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust is decolonizing his hometown museum over the growing concerns about how his ideas are being portrayed today. The trust — which owns several buildings in Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, England and a collection of personal documents of the writer's — wants to 'create a more inclusive museum experience' by promising to remove offensive language from its collections. 'As part of our ongoing work, we've undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible,' a statement from the trust read. According to GB News, the trust intends to research how Shakespeare's artifacts could be interpreted to be less offensive and more diverse and inclusive. This discussion surrounding Shakespeare's work has been going on for a few years. Three years ago, a research project conducted by the trust and Dr. Helen Hopkins at the University of Birmingham suggested that the writer's works 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy,' as reported by the Telegraph. Adaptations of Shakespeare's work have been going on for hundreds of years, but in 2023, the historic Globe replica in London — which is closely associated with the writer — issued a warning of 'misogyny and racism' for their performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. According to the Daily Mail, at the time, a spokesman for the Globe said, 'Content guidance is written in advance of the creation of each production and based on what is present in the play. These will be updated as the production comes to life.' A year prior to that, many US schools wanted to take Shakespeare out of their curriculum, stating that the writer's work promoted racism. While many around the world are doing what they can to no longer promote the writer's work, Broadway doesn't seem to be joining the bandwagon. The playwright's 1603 tragedy 'Othello' has opened at the Barrymore Theatre with Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. The show is set to run through June 8. Prior to that, the latest adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet' starred Rachel Zegler and Kit Connor at the Broadway's Circle in the Square, which closed in early February.
Telegraph
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Shakespeare's birthplace to be decolonised after ‘white supremacy' fears
William Shakespeare's birthplace is being 'decolonised' following concerns about the playwright being used to promote ' white supremacy '. Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust owns buildings linked to the Bard in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The trust also owns archival material including parish records of the playwright's birth and baptism. It is now 'decolonising' its vast collection to 'create a more inclusive museum experience'. This process includes exploring 'the continued impact of Empire' on the collection, the 'impact of colonialism' on world history, and how 'Shakespeare's work has played a part in this'. The trust has stated that some items in its collections and archives may contain ' language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful'. The process of 'decolonising', which typically means moving away from Western perspectives, comes after concerns were raised that Shakespeare's genius was used to advance ideas about 'white supremacy'. The claims were made in a 2022 collaborative research project between the trust and Dr Helen Hopkins, an academic at the University of Birmingham. The research took issue with the trust's quaint Stratford attractions, comprising the supposed childhood homes and shared family home of Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, his wife, because the Bard was presented as a 'universal' genius. This idea of Shakespeare's universal genius 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy ', it was claimed. This is because it presents European culture as the world standard for high art, a standard which was pushed through 'colonial inculcation' and the use of Shakespeare as a symbol of ' British cultural superiority ' and 'Anglo-cultural supremacy'. Veneration of Shakespeare is therefore part of a 'white Anglo-centric, Eurocentric, and increasingly 'West-centric' worldviews that continue to do harm in the world today'. The project recommended that Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust recognise that 'the narrative of Shakespeare's greatness has caused harm – through the epistemic violence'. The project also recommended that the trust present Shakespeare not as the 'greatest', but as 'part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world'. The trust then secured funding from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, an organisation that finances projects that boost diversity and inclusion, to help make the collection more international in its perspective. As part of its commitment to being more international in outlook, the trust has so far organised events celebrating Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, and a Romeo and Juliet-inspired Bollywood dance workshop. The trust will continue looking at updating the 'current and future interpretation' of objects in its collection. It will also explore how objects could be used as the focus for new interpretations which tell more international stories, in order to appeal to a more diverse audience. It has additionally pledged to remove offensive language from its collections information, as part of a 'long, thoughtful' process. The collections contain not only some of the limited contemporary documents linked to the Bard, but archived material, literary criticism, books linked to Shakespeare and gifts from around the world offered in honour of the writer. The ongoing closing of sites linked to Shakespeare comes following a trend for more racially-focused criticism of the playwright in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The Globe Theatre in London ran a series of seminars titled Anti-Racist Shakespeare which promoted scholarship focused on the idea of race in his plays. Academies taking part in the series made a number of claims, including that King Lear was about 'whiteness', and that the character of Prince Hamlet holds 'racist' views of black people. A statement from the trust said: 'As part of our ongoing work, we've undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible.' Properties run by the trust, including his family home New Place, are not original buildings Shakespeare would have known, but later reconstructions.
