Shakespeare’s Othello: The Esteemed, Reviled, Shunned, and Integrated?

A Specially Esteemed Contributor

Iceland shunned over whale hunting

Iceland’s start-up of commercial whaling this summer appears to be having a dramatic effect on the country’s booming ecotourism and whale-watching holidays. One major British tour operator has reported a 25 per cent drop in bookings since the country resumed whaling last month. Iceland’s decision to resume commercial whaling comes at the most sensitive time for international whaling in a genera...

The Evolution of Strong Othello

Race and ethnicity in Othello

Othello was written at a particular moment in history when the European construction of the ‘other’ was moving from a medieval to a modern paradigm. This involved a shift from religion to race and colour as the key signifiers of difference. In other words, Othello was written at a time when modern racial ideology and racial prejudice as we know them were coming into being but were not yet fully...

Machine Learning of Othello Heuristics

The machine learning algorithm of [3] is applied to the problem of learning which heuristics to apply when playing the board game Othello. The problem is large, for there are 46,875 heuristics considered. The results are respectable; the Learner is able to beat a practiced human player approximately fifty percent of the time. Suggestions for improvement are included.