Undergraduate Course: Representing Race on the British Stage, 1600-1850 (ENLI10438)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores a wide range of performances that centre representations of race by English, Scottish and Irish dramatists from the early seventeenth century to the middle nineteenth century. |
| Course description |
This course will introduce students to a wide range of plays, masques, and comic operas that include and often centre characters of African, Asian or Indigenous American heritage by dramatists from the early modern to the Victorian period. All of these performances were extremely popular at the time and for many audiences in cities like London, Newcastle, Dublin and Edinburgh, the stage became the most accessible medium for learning about the places and spaces where England was colonising and trading in both natural resources and human beings. The historical framework for this course centres race across nearly three centuries of theatre history as a way to evaluate how English, Scottish and Irish dramatists like Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, Archibald Maclaren and Dion Boucicault represented the identities of peoples outside of Europe from the seventeenth through to the nineteenth centuries.
Disengaging the concept of race as solely a construction of the European imagination, weekly discussions will read performances on their own and in conversation in context with critical scholarship of colonialism, miscegenation, abolition and blackface minstrelsy.
We will also consider the development of Scottishness and Irishness as racialised categories during this period. The method of assessment will be an in-class close reading assessment in week 5, and a 3,000-word final exam essay due during the exam period.
Indicative reading list for 2025/26
Essential Texts
All of the primary texts are by English, Irish and Scottish dramatists from the period of 1600-1850, with one exception (Ira Aldridge). Each text is paired with a work of criticism that addresses race and performance, colonialism, and the intersections of class and gender in relation to racist and essentialist depictions of people from former and currently colonised nations during this period.
William Shakespeare, Othello, 1603
Ben Johnson, The Masque of Beauty and The Masque of Blackness, 1605
John Fletcher, The Island Princess, 1621
Thomas Southerne, Oroonoko, 1695
Samuel Johnson, Irene, 1749
Isaac Bickerstaff, The Padlock, 1768
William Macready, The Irishman in London: Or, The Happy African, a Farce, 1793
George Colman the Younger, Inkle and Yarico, 1787
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Pizarro, 1799
Archibald Maclaren, The Negro Slaves, 1799
John Fawcett, Obi, or, Three-Fingered Jack, 1800
Ira Aldridge, The Black Doctor, 1847
Dion Boucicault, The Octoroon, 1859/1861
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% coursework:
Close Reading essay 30%
3000 word final essay 70% |
| Feedback |
Students will receive feedback in different formats:
1. The in-class close reading assessment will provide marks and feedback that addresses student¿s demonstration of textual knowledge and analysis. For the assessment, they will be presented with a set of between three and four pairs of passages made up of dialogue from plays from weeks 1-4, along with passages from the assigned criticism and asked to write a close critical discussion of a pair. They will be assessed on their skills in close textual analysis of language and formal features, as well as knowledge of the wider historical context in relation to the general course themes.
2. The undergraduate final essay assessment will provide feedback that addresses all of the same assessment requirements as the in-class close reading, in addition to a well-defined line of argument that answers the chosen question in a way that demonstrates critical and independent thinking, knowledge of the text and evidence of conversation with critical sources.
3. The postgraduate final essay assessment will provide feedback in two stages. First, students will submit a 1,000-word plan for their 4,000-word essay. Feedback will respond to the topic, thesis statement, outline for the scope of the argument and textual material used to build their argument. Second, students will submit the 4,000-word final essay that will be assessed along the same guidelines as the UG final essay. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Engage with textual reproductions of English, Scottish and Irish theatrical performances produced in Britain between 1600 and 1860 that address representations of race.
- Demonstrate critical and analytic views of Essential and secondary sources in formal written essays, group discussion and independent study.
- Communicate and discuss complex issues of gender and sexuality, class and ethnicity that emerge in close textual analysis of the performance texts, and theoretical readings of contemporary scholarship.
- Explain how African, Asian and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were characterised by European dramatists over three centuries of stage history.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Mindsets: Enquiry and lifelong learning; Outlook and Engagement
Skills: Research and enquiry; Communication; Personal and intellectual autonomy.
After taking this course, students will have a mindset that has evolved in a way that allows them to view and understand the world around them. Even though the texts for this course are from centuries ago, we are all still living in the aftermath of that time and everyday decisions are still being made in light of those earlier engagements. Exposure to this information and to the innovative research that accompanies the texts will better inform students in making future assessments and engage with the many different communities around them.
Seminar discussions and independent reading will enable students to make reasoned judgements rooted in the presentation of evidence and analysis. |
| Keywords | Theatre,Early Modern literature,Comedy,Race,Slavery,Colonialism,Tragedy,Imperialism,Perform,Gender |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Desha Osborne
Tel:
Email: dosborn2@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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