What’s in a Name: Slave-Slurs in Early Modern English Drama - Dr. Hassana Moosa - 20th April
On 18th May at 17:00(GMT)/12:00(EST), we will discuss a pre-circulated paper titled ‘What’s in a Name: Slave Slurs in Early Modern English Drama’ by Dr. Hassana Moosa (University of Cape Town). During the seminar, Dr. Moosa will introduce the paper before a discussion and Q&A. To attend, please register here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/centreforearlymodernstudies/2022021
To receive the pre-circulated materials, please ensure you register a week in advance of the seminar.
Paper Abstract
What did the word ‘slave’ mean when it was used in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century drama? This paper considers the dynamic use of this language in a selection of plays that depict slavery in early modern Mediterranean settings and argues that the term was pivotal to the production of racial difference on the English stage. ‘Slave’ forms part of a group of labels (including ‘rogue’, ‘villain’, and ‘peasant’) which were commonly used pejoratively in theatres, to variously undermine characters by asserting their social, moral, economic, or intellectual inferiority relative to the addressor. At the same time, of course, the word denoted legal slavery across the numerous plays that featured bound characters. By assessing the overlapping and distinctive uses of the term, and how playwrights try to manage its meanings, I consider how the word ‘slave’ itself was racialised, and spotlight the work it did to naturalise associations between racial Blackness and bondage.
Bio
Dr. Hassana Moosa is a Lecturer in English Literary Studies at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses broadly on the intersections of race and class, race and religion, and slavery in early modern England. She is working on her first book project, which is tentatively entitled Branding Bondage: Racial Slavery on the Early Modern English Stage (1560-1660). She is currently a Short-Term Fellow in the 2025-6 Folger Fellowship Programme. She is also a board member of RaceB4Race as well as the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa, and is a Research Editor on the project Medieval and Early Modern Orients.
Image Citation: Vroom the younger, Cornelius Hendriksz. Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, oil on panel (1615). Art UK.