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Oakton Great Books Speaker Series features April 9 presentation on Shakespeare classic

Jeffrey Gore, scholar of the English Renaissance from the University of Illinois at Chicago, will discuss the role of race in Shakespeare's "Othello, the Moor of Venice" 12:30-1:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, at Oakton Community College's Des Plaines campus, Room 1625. The Great Books Speaker Series, "Is This the Noble Moor? The Many Races of Shakespeare's Othello," is free and open to the public. "Audiences of the Shakespeare classic have long been perplexed by the role of race in the drama," says Michael Mauritzen, Great Books coordinator and assistant professor of English at Oakton. "Although it seems to disappear as an issue during the middle of the play, the villain Iago, as part of his deceitful rhetorical arsenal, uses 17th-century attitudes toward race to attack Othello." Gore's research particularly focuses on how religious issues affected modern debates over education and political citizenship. He regularly presents papers at national and international conferences on Shakespeare and Milton. A member of the Renaissance Society of America and Milton Society of America, Gore's research has appeared in numerous publications including "Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History," "Reasoning Words" and "Prose Studies." He earned his doctorate in English literature from UIC.

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