Threshold people: Representing change and exchange in the contact zone

Threshold People---Representing Change and Exchange in the Contact Zone explores the impact of England's encounter with eastern (specifically Ottoman Turkish and Morris North African) cultures on early modern drama. It examines the ways in which England's complex and varied interactions with the Muslim world led to dramatists experimenting with kinds of subjectivities and identities that they imagined emerging from the contact zone between Europe and the East. A Christian convert to Islam was said to have "turned Turk," however "turning" both as trope and reality is not restricted to change in religious identity alone. On the other hand, the tensions and anxieties associated with "turning" or alteration manifest themselves in other aspects of cultural interaction; on stage, "turning" itself "turns," i.e. in the process of being used by the dramatist to facilitate plot movement and heighten dramatic tension, change of one sort or the other becomes indicative, not only of cultural anxiety but paradoxically also serves as self-reassurance, a means of signaling confidence in English potential and the ability to successfully counter the religious and other threats posed by the Turks and Moors.