Ian Smith
Professor of English at the University of Southern California and scholar of early modern race and rhetoric; author of Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race (Cambridge UP, 2022) and Race and Rhetoric in the Renaissance.
Best podcasts with Ian Smith
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Feb 9, 2026 • 1h 11min
Ian Smith, "Black Shakespeare: Reading and Misreading Race" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Ian Smith, Professor of English at USC and author of Black Shakespeare, probes how readers are trained to miss race in Shakespeare. He explores systemic whiteness, racial literacy, and how historical laws and theatrical strategies shape perception. Short, sharp takes touch on Othello, Shylock, Hamlet, and how classroom and archival work can reshape how we read race.
