Exploration of race, as term and concept, at three different historical times and from three different perspectives, through the reading of three stories: William Shakespeare's drama Othello, Aphra Behn's novella Oroonoko, and the short story Benito Cereno by Herman Melville. Exploration of the importance of context in interpretation. Study of how a concept for rationalizing human difference appears and adapts, fuses and fades away, relocates and is repurposed. How understanding of the particular situation of the concept, its context, changes our reading of the story.