Acknowledging Things of Darkness: Postcolonial Criticism of

Over the last forty years, postcolonial criticism has become a dominant mode of critical discourse for the profession of literature and Renaissance studies in particular, with The Tempest serving as terminus a quo for many such discussions across historical periods and academic disciplines.1 During this time—not counting courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance drama, or early modern literature—The Tempesthas been taught in English departments at the undergraduate or graduate level in freshman seminars; surveys of Great Books; capstone courses; writing and composition courses; seminars on literary theory, Marxism, postcolonialism, and race, gender, queer theory; early American literature and transatlantic literature courses; surveys of American literature; and courses on Romanticism, modernism, modern drama, Third World literatures, postmodernism, Chicano/a literatures, Afro-Caribbean literatures, and diaspora literatures. Outside English departments, the play has been taught in such varied disciplines as African American studies,