How to Think like Shakespeare grew out of a convergence between my teaching and my parenting.
Over the past decade, I’ve been reading a lot of great work about Shakespeare’s career, from pedagogical practices to the inherently collaborative nature of theater. This inspired me to reshape my teaching, to help students approach him as a maker: a play-wright.
During this same decade, my own kids have been progressing through elementary and secondary school. Some of the frustrating educational reforms they’ve confronted strike me as jarringly at odds with the still-beneficial aspects of a Shakespearean education.
I grew up in Duluth, attended Grinnell College, and earned my doctorate from Harvard University. I’ve taught at Oberlin College, Amherst College, and Gustavus Adolphus College, and held the Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at Yale University Library’s Special Collections.
I now teach at Rhodes College, as well as in many other venues: grade-school tutoring, junior high mentoring, high school lectures, teacher workshops, prison seminars, and adult education courses. I also serve as the founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment, a program that helps keep Shakespeare vibrant today. I hope my book does the same.
My scholarship has been recognized by the American Philosophical Society, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Fulbright Program, the Institute for Research in the Humanities, the Marco Institute, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the Newberry Library.
Outstanding Faculty Member , Campus Life Awards, Rhodes College, 2012
Nominee, Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching, Gustavus Adolphus College, 2005
Nominee, Levenson Award for Outstanding Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, 1999
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University, 1998
Work in Progress
Duluth in Mind, on the place of the Zenith City within the American cultural imagination
How to Teach Children: A Renaissance Guide to a Real Education, a selection of Michel de Montaigne’s writings (advance contract, Princeton UniversityPress, 2023)
Twinomials: Residual Bilingualism and Philological Citizenship in English Renaissance Literature, supported by a fellowship from the American Philosophical Society
“‘Here Lies’: Sincerity and Insincerity in Early Modern Epitaphs Onstage,” Christianity & Literature (2017)
"Death," Shakespeare in Our Time, SAA volume on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare′s death, ed. Dympna Callaghan and Suzanne Gossett (Bloomsbury, 2016)
"Certain Tendencies in Criticism of Shakespeare on Film," co-authored with Richard Burt, Shakespeare Studies special issue on "After Shakespeare on Film" (2010)
"After Welles: Re-do Voodoo Macbeths," in Weyward Macbeth (2010)
Appendix: Selected Productions of Macbeth Featuring Non-traditional Casting," co-authored with Brent Butgereit, in Weyward Macbeth (2010)
"The Poetics of Closure: Epitaphs Ending Renaissance Elegies ‘Here,’" "Literature of the Graveyard" special issue of Studies in the Literary Imagination(Spring 2006)
Seminar member, "Shakespeare Spin-offs," Shakepeare Association of America Annual Meeting (April 2009)
"Shakespeare and Presidential Politics," invited lecture, Centre College (October 2008)
Seminar member, "Shakespeare′s Medieval Tautologies: Loving and Cherishing English," International Shakespeare Conference, The Shakespeare Institute (August 2008)
Seminar leader, "Burke and Shakespeare," Kenneth Burke Society Triennial Conference, Villanova University (June 2008)"Welles, Verdi, Othello," Film Music Conference, Bradford International Film Festival (March 2008)
Organizer, "Shakespeare in Color: A Symposium on Macbeth and African-American Performances and Appropriations," Rhodes College (January 25, 2008)