Adultérations

Adulterations : crossdressing over the racial line in Othello The Elizabethan convention of cross-dressing and the American Victorian burlesque which exploited ‘black face’ both represent travesties. This essay explores the ways in which these artifices, whether sexual or racial, reduce actual representation to interchangeable theatre practices, a parade of masks that calls representation itself into question. It considers whether these two analogous conventions, apparently so distant from each other, may already be implicitly present in Othello’s drama of adultery

Adultery · Art · Art history · Burlesque · Drama · Face (sociological concept · Linguistics · Literature · Parade · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical Art and Culture Studies · History · Law · Philosophy