July 20th: Othello and Chasing the Stars with Douglas Lanier

​Sasha Maseelall
English Department
Western Reserve Academy
Hudson, OH

​Today's program provided yet another avenue into the work of transforming the way we teach Shakespeare. Dr. Douglas Lanier of UNH (on good authority, THE pioneer on media adaptations of Shakespeare) was our virtual speaker. The discussion was on Malorie Blackman's speculative YA novel, Chasing the Stars (2016). Logistics threatened to cut the morning short, due to intermittent connectivity from our guest's accommodations abroad. The professor signed off in search of greener wifi pastures; minutes later--thanks to the robust network at the pub across from his hotel--Lanier was live streaming within the walls of our beloved Elizabeth Hall. Thus undeterred in the face of technology's mockery, we commenced discussing Blackman's story about the blurred lines between (hu)man and machine.

​After a catastrophic viral outbreak on a ship far, far away, eighteen-year-old Olivia Sindall (AKA "Vee") is sole commander of the Earth Vessel Aidan. Her only companion is the ship's namesake: her twin brother Aidan. But something is amiss about Aidan, making Vee extra willing to risk her life in answering a distress call from Terran beings on Barros 5. Of the 85 settlers under attack of the xenophobic, non-human Mazons, the siblings rescue and onboard 12 settlers. Romantic liaisons and jealousy ensue. Ultimately, the greenest envy comes from Aidan, who (spoiler alert!) turns out to be not Vee's flesh and blood, but a robotic replica of the same. 
 
Lanier differentiated between the strains of adaptation, all of which Blackman employs: in paraphrase, direct quotation (with enumerated page references, to boot!), naming, and what Lanier referred to as free plot adaptation. In Chasing the Stars, Shakespearean references commingle with references to Grease! and Dead Poets Society, sparking the question of which cultural artifacts shall persist over cosmic time. As Vee reminds us, "Good [art] is good, regardless of when or where it originated" (89). 

​By articulating ties to Shakespeare and particularly Othello, Lanier showed how Shakespearean allusion supports, as opposed to drives, the narrative impulse. Instead of centralizing the story of the Black Moor in the Western world, Blackman's text interrogates the nature of jealousy beyond racial, ethnic, and even (post)human division. Perhaps Blackman might have capitalized on rich cultural gems outside of the Western world -- say the Ramayana, or Gilgamesh -- to drive home her point about origins. But to be sure, Vee's position as a woman of color, not to mention (more spoiler) her love interest's status as a drone, upends normative power structures in counter to the problematics of Othello. 
 
More than that, though, Blackman's story deploys the known, vis-a-vis allusion, to make sense of the unknown. As Lanier explained, allusion "yokes disparate ideas to foster familiarity"; they are lighthouses marking the way as readers broach the transgressions of YA and speculative genres both. Anyone who has been young and in crazy love -- or has otherwise stepped outside of boundaries -- understands what I mean.