Teaching Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times
Description
An investigation of the issues affecting the teaching of Shakespeare in non-elite public universities and private liberal arts colleges in the US, combined with a set of imaginative responses to those problems.
Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times investigates the place of Shakespeare where almost all US students encounter his work-at non-elite public universities and small liberal arts colleges. Increasingly, these students are taught by contingent or overstretched tenured professors.
Growth in higher education has been constant over the past fifty years, fueled by democratization. But lately, democratization has lost its allure: higher education is too expensive, too politicized, and students and families think hard about the investment. And now higher education faces another daunting challenge, a demographic cliff, beginning in 2026: a reduction of approximately 15% in the college-age cohort in the decade following. Already over the past ten years, for-profit institutions have failed, small non-profit four-year colleges have closed, and many public state systems have consolidated. More will follow. How do professors cope aboard what feels like a sinking ship?
This volume offers answers to that question, while assessing the limits of those answers by highlighting the structural constraints we face. Colleagues are becoming generalists, or even do not teach literature at all; Shakespeare, long considered untouchable, now struggles to survive; Shakespeareans, too.
This is the hand we are dealt, which we must play whether we acknowledge it, see it as a double bind, or choose to ignore it altogether. On the Titanic, the orchestra played familiar, upbeat pieces as the ship went down, trying to prevent panic. Heroic, true, but what this volume explores is whether preventing panic by reciting what's familiar is the answer we need.
More details
Persons
Craig Dionne is Professor of English at Eastern Michigan University, USA. He is author of Posthuman Lear: Reading Shakespeare in the Anthropocene (2016) and has co-edited several anthologies including Bollywood Shakespeares (2014), Native Shakespeares: Indigenous Appropriations on a Global Stage (2008), Rogues and Early Modern English Culture (2005), and Disciplining English (2002) with David Shumway.
Sharon O'Dair is Professor Emerita of English and was the former director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama, USA. In addition to her recent collaborations with Francisco, she is author of Class, Critics, and Shakespeare: Bottom Lines on the Culture Wars (2000) and co-edited The Production of English Renaissance Culture (1994).
Content
List of contributors
Introduction
Section One: Contours and Limits of the Problem
1. "Come un-bundle here: Un-disciplined Shakespeare and the Trojan horses of Neoliberalism."
Timothy Francisco, Youngstown State University, USA
2. "Humanism's Lonely Hour: Shakespeare and the Enrollment Cliff. Or Can We Imagine Shakespeare without Students?"
Craig Dionne, Eastern Michigan University, USA
3. "Losing the Canon: From the Great Books to 'Welcome to College' Courses."
Beth McDermott, William Douglas Mastin, and Kevin Andrew Spicer, University of St. Francis, Joliet, USA
4. "The 'Multi-Hyphenate' Student: On the Role of Shakespeare in Professional Arts Programs ."
Joel M. Dodson, Southern CT State University, USA
5. "Here are only numbers ratified": Reflective Outcomes in the Shakespeare Classroom
Jay Zysk, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, USA
6. "'And one man in his time plays many parts': Contextualisation and Its Pressures for the Emerging Shakespearean Generalist." Benjamin Djain, American University, USA
Section Two: Imaginative Ways Forward
7. "'Create Me New'?: Transformational Shakespeares."
Kimberly Huth, California State University, Dominguez Hills, USA
8. "Fact and Fiction of Creative Work"
Doug Eskew, Colorado State University, Pueblo, USA
9. "Care, Community, and Environmental Justice: Shakespearean Eco-Theater."
Katherine Steele Brokaw, University of California, Merced., USA
10. "Titanic Realities: The Dispossessed Community College."
Jeffrey Butcher, Scottsdale Community College, USA
11. "#ECUFatHam: Theater Travel as Immersive Learning."
Marianne Montgomery, East Carolina University, USA
Afterword, "On the Cliffs of Dover."
Sharon O'Dair, University of Alabama, USA
References
Index