Remedial Uses of Shakespeare

Abstract

In Miguel Sapochnik’s post-apocalyptic film Finch, which was released for streaming on Apple TV+ during the pandemic of Covid-19, the name and plays of Shakespeare are deployed as a reminder of human civilization. As the editors suggest, cultural appropriation can be an exploitative act but need not be; it all depends on what users do with Shakespeare. Appropriations are rarely negotiated on a level playing field, especially when it comes to Shakespeare, because of the canon’s long history of association with cultural elites and prestige. The act of dreaming serves as more than a narrative device that creates plot parallels to Shakespeare’s Dream. In fact, remedial interpretations as a mode have informed the work of researchers and practitioners since the 1980s. There are many ways in which remedial uses of Shakespeare can work in classroom to repair and to manifest care, rather than to enforce notion that students lack cultural capital that they can only gain through passively absorbing Shakespeare.