Shakespeare in the Global South: Transcolonial Solidarities across Oceans of Difference: Stories of Oceans Crossed in Contemporary Adaptation

Shakespeare in the Global South proposes the critical frame provided by the idea of a Global South in order to theorize cultural difference. It looks sideways across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to a variety of non---traditional centres of Shakespeare theatre--making to explore the solidarities and affinities not as evident in Stratford's Shakespeare. It takes its lead from innovative theatre practice in Mauritius, Cape Verde, north India, and post-apartheid South Africa, to assess the value for cultural theory of conceptualising the transformation of Shakespeare across the world as indigenisation, creolisation, Africanisation, and localisation of endlessly transforming iterations of Shakespeare's work. Contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare's plays have brought into sharp focus the legacies of slavery, racism and colonial dispossession that still haunt the global South. Looking sideways across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to nontraditional centres of Shakespeare practice, Shakespeare in the Global South explores the solidarities generated by contemporary adaptations and their stories of displacement and survival. The book takes its lead from innovative theatre practice in Mauritius, North India, Brazil, post-apartheid South Africa and the diasporic urban spaces of the global North, to assess the lessons for cultural theory emerging from the new works. Using the'global South'as a critical frame, Sandra Young reflects on the vocabulary scholars have found productive in grappling with the impact of the new iterations of Shakespeare's work, through terms such as'creolization','indigenization','localization','Africanization'and'diaspora'. Shakespeare's presence in the global South invites us to go beyond familiar orthodoxies and to recognize the surprising affinities felt across oceans of difference in time and space that allow Shakespeare's inventiveness to be a part of the enchanting subversions at play in contemporary theatre's global currents. Cover Contents Acknowledgements 1 Introducing the Global South 2 Creolization 3 Indigenization 4 Africanization 5 Diasporic disruptions 6 Afterword: Insurgent Cosmopolitanism in the South Notes Bibliography Index