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Class number:
3033
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Title: Pop Culture Shakespeare |
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Department: English |
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Career: Undergraduate |
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Component: Seminar |
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Session: Regular |
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Instructor's Permission Required: No |
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Grading Basis: Regular |
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Units: 1.00 |
| Enrollment limited to 25 |
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Current enrollment: 19 |
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Available seats: 6 |
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Start date: Tuesday, January 20, 2026 |
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End date: Friday, May 8, 2026 |
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Mode of Instruction: In Person |
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Schedule: TR: 2:55PM-4:10PM, 115V - 106 |
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Instructor(s): Brown, David |
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Prerequisite(s): None |
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Distribution Requirement: Meets Writing Emphasis Part1 and Hum Requirements |
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Note: For majors, this course fulfills the requirement of a pre-1800 requirement/elective/additional literature or film course. |
Course Description:
Shakespeare was—and still is—an integral and interesting part of popular culture, particularly music, television, marketing and even fashion. However, people don't always catch the references. This course will introduce students to the playwright’s broad influence by tracing understudied, or less obvious, allusions to select plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet. For example, the late rapper Tupac Shakur has a song called “Something Wicked,” a Macbeth reference; Adele quotes Hamlet in a song on her album 25; Jordan Peele’s film Get Out has resonances of Othello; and the brand Yoshi has an entire leather goods collection devoted to “honoring” Shakespeare’s iconic plays. But that’s not all. Shakespeare’s seemingly boundless impact touches TV shows, news stories, ad campaigns and more. As such, this course will ask students to identify and investigate where, how and why Shakespeare shows up in our contemporary world as we think expansively about the playwright's influence and its cultural, historical transferability over the centuries. While interrogating allusions to the plays, we will consider the fandom phenomenon, reflecting on what it means to be or not to be a fan of the "great white poet." |