Scarsdale Adult School Catalog Fall/Winter 2024-25
Shylock, Barabas, and Antisemitism Christopher Marlowe’s popular, bloody play, The Jew of Malta (1592), led to Shakespeare’s popular The Merchant of Venice five years later. Barabas and Shylock are prosperous investment bankers in mercantile societies that value their services but despise them because they are Jewish. How they conduct themselves and why, and how they are viewed and treated by others, is the context for this regrettably timely discussion. Were these plays antisemitic when presented in Elizabethan England, from which Jews had been banned for 300 years? Are both plays now antisemitic? Is Shakespeare? How do we arrive at such judgments about literary works? Examine texts and history. The Jew of Malta is available online at https://www.owleyes.org/text/jew-malta and in print (Norton); a summary will be provided. Please use Folger
Shakespeare Library's 2010 edition of The Merchant of Venice , editors Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine; video clips will also be provided. ROBERT HERMANN spends the best part of his summers in the post-graduate Shakespeare program at Cambridge University and leads courses for SAS during the academic year on Shakespeare's plays. He majored in English, received a BA from Dartmouth College and an LLB from Yale Law School, and has been practicing in the field of litigation, public interest law, and governmental law for many years in addition to teaching at NYU Law School. 4 Sessions, starting Wednesday, October 16 • 10:00am-11:30am • Zoom • Course 12780 • $120
Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing Before single Benedick and Beatrice can agree to marry, they have to overcome misperceptions and mistakes that upper-crust Messina society has circulated about them based on their past actions and words. Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber has dubbed this work “Shakespeare’s great play about gossip. Everything is overheard, misheard, or constructed on purpose for eavesdropping.” The social medium, the coin of the realm in this privileged society, is rumor, created and perpetuated by hearsay, disguise, half-truths, and lies. Sound familiar? Always a popular romantic comedy, Much Ado cast the mold for nineteenth century drawing-room comedies on stage and twentieth century screwball comedy movies ranging from Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn to Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. This course will focus equally on text and recent film and stage productions. Please use Folger Shakespeare Library's 2018 edition, editors Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine; online access to top-tier British productions will be provided. ROBERT HERMANN (see bio for “Shylock, Barabas, and Antisemitism”). NICHOLAS BIRNS (see bio for “Book Discussion: The Rainbow (1915) by D.H. Lawrence, a Modernist Family Saga”). 4 Sessions, starting Wednesday, February 26 • 10:00am-11:45am • Zoom • Course 13087 • $140
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