This course will focus on the tragedies of Shakespeare, including Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth . The course will end with a Romance play, The Tempest. We will be focusing much of our discussions on the themes of desire and sexuality as offered in Shakespeare’s works. We will also work with modes of production, including film and art. The main goals of the course are to help you learn to “decode” the language of Shakespeare through close readings and to make you more confident readers of the Great Bard. In addition, we will negotiate the difference between how the works might have been understood in Shakespeare’s own culture and how they have been understood since. Issues of gender and sexuality will continue to arise.