The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is an independent charity that cares for the Shakespeare family houses in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, as well as for archival collections relating to his life and works.
Fearful that Shakespeare’s globally recognized genius might lead some readers to suspect that not all cultures were created equal, the organization has committed to the process of “decolonizing” its collections and organizational practice to help “create a more inclusive museum experience.”
The trust, which came into existence in 1847, acquired early Shakespeare collections from local antiquarians and others from the Stratford-upon-Avon Borough Council and Guild of the Holy Cross. Since appointing its first librarian to catalogue its library and archival materials in 1877, the organization has grown its collection with the help of donations and long-term deposits.
For much of its history, the trust appeared to understand that its function was to preserve Shakespeare’s reconstructed birthplace, extol his works, and share England’s cultural inheritance with the world. It appears, however, that post-colonialist, post-modern, and other varieties of radical leftist thought have poisoned its mission.
The organization has, for instance, tried to distance itself from the content it is supposed to champion as well as from the hardworking staff who kept the trust going in ages past, noting:
We recognise that the historical materials we hold may represent positions, language, values, and stereotypes that are not consistent with the current values and practices of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. People accessing our collections may encounter language or depictions that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise harmful. Some descriptions may have been written by staff, others may have originated from the individuals and organisations that created the records.
The trust appears to have also embarked on a mission of iconoclasm partly as a result of its receipt of funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is a leftist grant-making organization committed to “racial justice,” “migrant justice,” and “gender justice.” It is also committed to socially re-engineering Britain’s arts scene, specifically by “creating a cultural workforce that is more reflective of UK society, by enabling more people to progress in their career in the arts who identify as D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent, are from communities experiencing racial inequity, or who are economically disadvantaged.”
‘Purge the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s interpretative policies and brand narratives of Anglocentric and colonialist thought.’
According to the page for a recent “Global Shakespeare” project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is working with elements of the South Asian immigrant communities in the West Midlands to “uncover the hidden stories linked to specific objects and re-examine what they can teach us about the impact of colonialism on our perception of history of the world and the role Shakespeare’s work has played as part of this.”
The Telegraph reported that the iconoclastic initiative comes in the wake of concerns expressed by academic Helen Hopkins that Shakespeare’s unparalleled literary genius might be used to push “white supremacy,” and that in order to be globalized, Shakespeare must effectively be stripped of his national character.
Hopkins, who collaborated with the trust as an embedded researcher, suggested in 2022 that in the interest of “implementing positive change at the heart of Shakespeare’s cultural iconography,” namely the trust’s museum, it was necessary to “recognise the role Shakespeare has been forced to play in establishing and upholding imperialistic narratives of cultural supremacy; to purge the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s interpretative policies and brand narratives of Anglocentric and colonialist thought; to institute new communicative strategies to address societal inequities that are embedded in imperialism and associated with Shakespeare’s global cultural status.”
‘They cannot stand that an Englishman is the greatest writer that the world has ever produced.’
Hopkins noted further that it was a tragedy that the trust prioritized Shakespeare over its sub-collection of objects related to the 19th-century Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore but expressed hope that the trust could engage in “decolonial work” and “mark the beginning of a new relationship between itself and the multicultural and global communities it serves.” To Hopkins’ likely delight, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has made sure to start hyping the foreign poet in the time since.
The trust told the Telegraph in a statement, “As part of our ongoing work, we’ve undertaken a project which explores our collections to ensure they are as accessible as possible.”
Critics have rushed to defend Shakespeare following reports of the efforts to downplay the Bard’s greatness and identity and the trust’s efforts to effectively globalize his town.
“For the last 300 years, Europe and the West have stood head and shoulders above every other civilization,” historian Rafe Heydel-Mankoo told GB News. “The most profound and sophisticated music, art, and culture has come from the West, and we need to lose the embarrassment and be proud to admit the genius of the West and celebrate that Shakespeare was an Englishman.”
“That’s what sticks in the craw of the anti-Western ideologues that run our cultural institutions,” continued Heydel-Mankoo, “because they cannot stand that an Englishman is the greatest writer that the world has ever produced, and they will do anything to diminish and downplay that achievement.”
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