My current research examines the construction of racial and religious identity in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, with particular focus on the character of Aaron the Moor. Building on work by Noémie Ndiaye and Emily Bartels, I argue that Aaron is constructed through a deliberate convergence of Moorish and Jewish stereotypes, positioning him for an Elizabethan audience as a composite figure of otherness whose villainy draws simultaneously on anti-Black and antisemitic anxieties. This work engages with the historical contexts of the Alhambra Decree, the Marrano presence in Elizabethan England, and the theatrical conventions through which Shakespeare's contemporaries understood race and religion as categories of difference. A version of this paper will be presented at the NeMLA conference in Pittsburgh, March 2026.

More broadly, I am interested in the Elizabethan conception of ‘otherness’ throughout the canon, the intersection of race, religion, and popular theatrical representation, and the late medieval contexts that shaped early modern anxieties.