Matthieu Chapman
Author | Practitioner | Educator
Scholarship
My primary scholarly focus is the analysis of constructions of blackness as distinct from constructions of race in the Early Modern World and how this divide continues to resonate and inform our readings and performances of blackness in plays from Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Relying heavily on contemporary critical race theory, my work seeks to expand the geographical and temporal framework of Afro-pessimism to reveal how blackness occupied a position of Social Death prior to the chattel slave trade. In doing so, I aim to reveal ways in which anti-black racism existed in the English psyche prior to encounters with black bodies and how this abjection of blackness shapes our modern world.
Secondary interests include Anti-Racist Actor Training, Early Modern English Drama, Contemporary Black Theatre, Theatre Pedagogy, Chican/x Theatre, Devising, and the role of Black Arts in the Academy.
