In this project, Aneesa Rashid draws on the conventions and canonical works of comic books, most directly Harvey Pekar’s “Name Story,” in order to interrogate Prospero’s character as it is presented in The Tempest. Although Rashid writes in her reflection that she is “not an artist,” her very deliberate artistic choices turn a simplistic drawing style into a strength. By forgoing unnecessary detail, she forces the audience to pay attention to how Prospero’s face is obscured throughout by the hat that symbolizes his magical powers; the recurring image of Prospero slipping out of frame as he reveals his social anxieties further emphasizes our sense that “Prospero does not exist”—or perhaps, Prospero would prefer nonexistence.

The final frame, showing Prospero’s magic hat abandoned on a chair, echoes Prospero’s ultimate discarding of his magical books and staff near the end of The Tempest. Yet through this comic, the audience comes to understand a deeper significance in this action: Prospero abandons the tools of his manipulation in order to reveal his true self out of frame. Following 26 frames in which Prospero’s entire face is obscured by the symbols of his power (which Rashid has re-framed as symbols of his isolation), the vulnerability of that gesture carries a powerful punch.

Tiffany Lucas’s cover art for A Huracán, an imagined retelling of The Tempest, plays with conventional expectations and understandings in both language and design in order to undermine the dominant narrative. By centering the Taíno word huracán, this books cover suggests an alternate narrative (how would Sycorax tell the story of The Tempest?), while also subtly reminding the audience of how the dominant narrative relies on—and erases—Taíno knowledge. While the ship on the front cover might conjure the ship that Prospero arranges to shipwreck at the beginning of The Tempest, the three crosses formed by the three masts also recall the Niña,  the Pinta, and the Santa María. By forcing the audience to physically open the book to see the other half of the image, this project hints at the work that must be done to discover and tell stories outside the dominant (Prospero’s) narrative.

Read Lucas’s reflection here.

Michael Gaudelli’s poem “Resistance” demonstrates a deft command of poetic form in service to complex storytelling and meaning-making. While the connection to The Tempest is not immediately apparent, by incorporating a version of Caliban’s line—“You taught me language, and my profit on’t/ Is I know how to curse”—Gaudelli connects the play to his meditation on the history of oppression and resistance to colonialism and racism. Yet by shifting the emphasis from you taught to we…learned, Gaudelli implicitly introduces resistance to the Shakespearean language as he cites it.

By rooting the poem in the story of the Israelites Gaudelli makes an additional connection to the larger narratives and rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement.

As Gaudelli notes in his reflection (Part 1 and Part 2), wordplay and rhyme scheme help the “flow” of the poem. But I would argue that it also adds meaning beyond the words. The tendency toward slant rather than perfect rhymes introduces subtle discomfort, perhaps reflecting the difficulties of the struggle for equality. The overly perfect rhyme of “another” with “another” introduces a relationship of identity between people of color—seen through white supremacist eyes as “another” or an Other—and the ongoing resistance that would break down the narrative centrality of whiteness. The poem seems to stutter on “Gained the knowledge to beat em,” which breaks the formal structure by rhyming with the two lines before and creating an internal (rather than end) rhyme with the next line, “Learned their language just to Curse them in it,” which produces an end rhyme with the next line, “Heard, it is all supposed to go down on 60 Minutes.” This structural stutter could be taken to symbolize the struggle to integrate the “knowledge” imparted through structurally racist systems of education into the language of resistance.

This painting demonstrates Husam Din’s thoughtful analysis of the play and careful attention to artistic choices. By using the trees in the foreground to symbolize Caliban and Prospero, Din is able to show how Prospero’s prosperity comes at the expense of Caliban’s ability to thrive. As he writes, “without the dead tree providing the lively tree with nutrients, the large lush tree cannot survive.” While illustrating Prospero’s relationship to Caliban, this image also calls to mind what Rob Nixon terms the “slow violence” of environmental devastation in oppressed communities.

This painting also communicates, as the reflection makes clear, how Prospero’s power only appears all-encompassing because we cannot see beyond it. In this way, Din’s painting complicates traditional understandings of Prospero’s power of illusion, while expanding his critique of power dynamics to the world beyond the play.

Read Husam Din’s reflection here.

This project offers a compelling exploration of the theme of illusion in The Tempest. By choosing to create a physical representation of a stage, Alexia Panayiotou calls our attention to stagecraft itself as an act of physical representation or embodiment of ideas. Theatrical representations, however, as Panayiotou points out, “are melted into air” at the end of the play. Ironically, then, thisproject gives permanent form and substance to the formlessness it portrays.

The mirrors mounted on the theater seats, as Paniyotou writes, “represent the fact that once Prospero leaves the stage, there is nothing to reflect just the surroundings.” Yet they also suggest a subtle commentary on Prospero’s character within The Tempest: he “sees” only his own reflection; his “power” lies in his ability to manipulate the characters around him to reflections of his will.

Read Panayiotou’s reflection here.