This course examines literary, theatrical, and cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Students learn how artists, including Shakespeare, have used creative production of the past to understand and address concrete issues and problems of the present, including political scandal and persecution, imperial domination, and racial and ethnic biases and oppression. We also explore the continued vitality worldwide of theater and the arts, as well as their constant transformations throughout time and space.