Moors, Mulattos, and Post-Racial Problems: Rethinking Racialization in Early Modern England by Kyle C. Grady A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in the University of Michigan 2017 Doctoral Committee: Professor Michael Awkward, Co-Chair Professor Michael C. Schoenfeldt, Co-Chair Professor Tiya A. Miles Professor Valerie J. Traub Kyle C. Grady [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2725-8127 © Kyle C. Grady 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have found more dedicated mentors than I have in my co-chairs, Michael Awkward and Michael Schoenfeldt, each of whom promised to advise this dissertation before I took my first class at the University of Michigan. This project is the result of countless lunches with Michael Awkward and innumerable conversations with Michael Schoenfeldt. For the last six years, Michael and Mike have been constant sources of wisdom, motivation, and support. Michael Awkward fostered the experimental aspects of this project with his incisive and innovative intellect. I could not be more grateful for his guidance in challenging times, which made all the difference. Mike Schoenfeldt’s erudition and enthusiasm deeply enriched each of this project’s investigations. His prowess as a scholar is matched only by his commitment as a teacher and advisor, and I have benefitted immensely from his endless encouragement through the highs and lows of this process. I have been incredibly fortunate in having Valerie Traub and Tiya Miles on my committee. Valerie provided invaluable feedback on every aspect of this project. Her careful attention to her students’ work and encyclopedic knowledge of early modern studies is a source of inspiration. Tiya Miles’s calm, keen, and unparalleled insight taught me to think in entirely new ways about history and the stories we tell about it. Her guidance has been indispensable. Special thanks are also due to Sandra Gunning, whose encouragement and advice helped me find my footing during the early stages of this project. At Michigan, I found a number of key sources of support. I am grateful for the financial assistance of the English Department, the English Department Writing Program, the Department ii of AfroAmerican and African Studies, the Rackham Graduate School, and the Institute for the Humanities. For their tireless work to create a graduate environment where I could develop my ideas, I am indebted to GEO. I have benefitted greatly from the wisdom of the staff in the English Department, DAAS, and at the IH, and I owe special gratitude to Jan Burgess, Lisa Curtis, Jane Johnson, Denise Looker, and Senia Vasquez in English, Wayne High in DAAS, and Doretha Coval and Sheri Sytsema-Geiger from the IH. I am also thankful to have found so many extraordinary faculty members and administrators at Michigan, each of whom proved more than generous with their time and advice. Anne Curzan, Lucy Hartley, Mark Kamimura-Jimenez, Marjorie Levinson, Joshua Miller, Susan Scotti Parrish, Alisse Portnoy, Catherine Sanok, Xiomara Santamarina, Sidonie Smith, Megan Sweeney, Ruby Tapia, Douglas Trevor, and John Whittier-Ferguson deserve particular thanks, as do the 2016-2017 faculty fellows at the IH. I have been lucky to share my time at Michigan with the most clever and caring friends and fellow students. I am particularly grateful to the members of the Early Modern Colloquium and the students of DAAS, whose brilliant work and generous recommendations have been personally and intellectually enriching. The final portion of this dissertation was completed among the graduate student fellows at the IH, who kept me thinking and laughing through my final revisions. I have also been unbelievably fortunate to go through nearly every step of my graduate education with Cass Adair, Eliza Mathie, and Kyera Singleton. With each of you, I have found true camaraderie. I am deeply indebted to those early modernists committed to anti-racist scholarship, without whose work this project would not have been possible. Special thanks are due to Peter Erickson, Kim Hall, Arthur Little, and Ayanna Thompson, whose advice and support these past few years have been crucial. Sections of this project were presented at a number of annual iii meetings of the Shakespeare Association of America, where I have always found a welcoming community. I am sincerely grateful for my many interlocutors there, whose wisdom has greatly benefitted this project. My thanks go especially to the participants of the 2015 seminar “Early Modern Race / Ethnic / Diaspora Studies.” My thanks also go to the readers and editorial team at Shakespeare Quarterly, where a version of my first chapter appears. Their careful attention to my work allowed me to approach the rest of this project with fresh eyes. When I think of the journey that led me to graduate study, I remember the many people who encouraged my interest in literature. I am thankful to have found such excellent mentors at Rutgers, especially Ann Baynes Coiro, Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, and Evie Shockley. I am also deeply grateful to my high school composition teacher, Laura Strachan, who first inspired me to pursue my interests in reading and writing. Much of the determination I mustered to approach the writing process I owe to Coach Lou Tomlinson of the Rutgers Track and Field team. Coach Lou’s Monday workouts helped me discover new levels of discipline in myself while I was an undergraduate, and his belief in me continues to help me clear hurdles off the track. I am truly fortunate to have such incredible family and friends, without whom I could not have written this dissertation. They pulled me away from my work with their love, laughter, and charm, making sure that my memories of graduate school would be overwhelmed by happy moments. I count myself truly lucky to have dear friends who take my calls at all hours, especially David Engelman, Robert Waters, Matt Mariani, and Jason Duggan. You are all much more like brothers to me than friends. For countless drinks and enthralling conversations in backyards, on porches, and in the greatest garage in Ann Arbor, I am grateful to my friends and neighbors, Jake Gillen, Clay Hillenburg, Nate Hoard, Jess Hoard, Nick Hoffman, Emma Jurado, iv Natalie Karp, Tony Lupo, Chris Postma, and Melanie Postma. Poe the pup, you are a terrible editor, but thank you for listening. Thank you to David Román, for always looking out for me, and to Per and Connie Montero, with whom I can always find home and happy hour. Thank you to the Maneris, my fellow philosophers at holiday dinners, and to Alex and Nicole Montero, for making sure our time together is never short of laughs. Throughout this journey, I have tried to emulate the strength of my sister, Amber Grady, whose unflagging faith in me is one of my truest motivations. Finally, to Valentina Montero-Román, you have been a model of brilliance, determination, and compassion as long as I have known you. Your love has taught me more than I can ever express. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………... ii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………… viii INTRODUCTION I…………………………………………………………………………………………... 1 II………..………………………………………………………………………………..15 III…… …………………………………………………………………………………...23 CHAPTER ONE Othello: Pre- and Post-Racial Silences…………………………………………………………. 26 Othello, Colin Powell, and Post-Racial Anachronisms………………………………… 29 Progressive Elisions……………………………………………………………………..43 The White Way…..…..………………………………………………………………….53 Deferring Racial Transcendence………………………………………………………...58 CHAPTER TWO The Battle of Alcazar: The Multicultural Moor………………………………………………… 66 The Multicultural Moor………………………………………………………………… 76 “This Negro” or These Negroes………………………………………………………... 88 Staging Race Traitors……………………………………………...…………………… 95 Where There is No “The Negro”……………………………………………………… 101 CHAPTER THREE The Masque of Blackness: Washing the Ethiop Whiter than White…………………………... 111 Pretend Blackness……………………………………………………………………... 120 Jonson’s “Power of Separation”………………………………………………………. 127 England’s “Curlèd Darlings”………………………………………………………….. 135 Enigmatic Tolerance……………………………………………………………..……. 145 CHAPTER FOUR Titus Andronicus: Making Much of the Mulatto……………………………………………… 154 Played Out “Experiments”……………………………………………………………..162 Ahistorical Interracialism……………………………………………………………... 170 The “Supposed” Fathers of Racial Mixing……………………………………………. 182 “Behold the Child”: Mixing as Misdirection……………………………………..........194 vi AFTERWORD Zora Neale Hurston and Humoral Theory…………………………………………….. 203 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………. 208 vii ABSTRACT This dissertation, Moors, Mulattos, and Post-Racial Problems: Rethinking Racialization in Early Modern England, examines early modern English dramatic representations of interethnic relations between black and white figures. It focuses on those representations that both garner and elude classification as racist, and it argues that the most appropriate means of recovering the subtle modes of racialization that engender these conflicting classifications is through consideration of African American writers and thinkers. Broadly speaking, early modern ethnicity studies have moved from exploring the period’s denigratory approaches to African blackness toward identifying its counterintuitive modes of engaging such difference. This shift in criticism has brought to the fore potential sites of tolerance but fails to account for the period’s contemporaneous racism. This dissertation argues that this