Foreign Asia / Foreign Shakespeare: Dissenting Notes on New Asian Interculturality, Postcoloniality, and Recolonization

Decanonizing the larger monolithic and Orientalist associations of Shakespeare and Asia, this essay problematizes their diverse relationships by focusing on three discrete, yet politically and economically linked, sites of investigation: New Asian explorations of Shakespeare in which the dramatic text is subsumed within ostensibly deconstructive scenarios exploring inter-Asian cultural difference; postcolonial critiques of Shakespearean adaptation in traditional performances like Kathakali; and the neo- Orientalist attempt to seek an authentic and vibrant Shakespeare in the living traditions of non-Western cultures. Even while de-provincializing the Bard and affirming that there are not just other Shakespeares but different Shakespeares, the essay also demonstrates that Asicacentricity could be the other side of the same coin as Eurocentricity.