As you might have noticed from the title of Federici’s book, she worships Shakespeare’s Caliban. She has read a bit too much of the idiot essayist Fernandez Retamar and has decided that Caliban symbolizes the oppressed non-white minorities fighting against colonial oppression.
What’s really crazy, though, is that Federici, a feminist, is so eager to worship a rapist. The goal of Caliban’s attempts at liberation in the play is being able to rape Miranda. Federici avoids mentioning this unpleasant fact because everything fades away once she gets a chance to posture as an anti-racist.
There is a whole generation of feminists who are more than happy to piss on every feminist issue if they get to scratch the itch of liberal guilt in exchange.
“feminists who are more than happy to piss on every feminist issue if they get to scratch the itch of liberal guilt in exchange”
This reminds me of pro-hijab/burqa feminists and the…. dearth of feminist outrage over Rotherham (where over a thousand non-muslim young women were targeted by mostly Pakistani rape gangs).
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She has read a bit too much of the idiot essayist Fernandez Retamar and has decided that Caliban symbolizes the oppressed non-white minorities fighting against colonial oppression.
What, no Sycorax?
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Yes, she complains that Sycorax is not central to Shakespeare.
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If she’s talking about medieval Europe why is she using fictional Italians in plays written by Renaissance English playwrights to frame her work?
Perhaps I’m being too literal in focusing on these weird time period jumping metaphors?
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No, you are absolutely right. There is so much jumping around that my head spins. For instance, the slaves in medieval Italy are “ancestors of today’s undocumented workers” and the primitive accumulation of the European 16th century is happening today in Africa. In short, everything is just like everything else. And we all know how much I like this approach.
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There was a substantial number of Africans in Elizabethan London, FWIW.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18903391
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