“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

How to Think like Shakespeare grew out of a convergence between my teaching and my parenting.

I’d been reading a lot of great work about Shakespeare’s career, from pedagogical practices to the 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 time, my own kids were progressing through elementary and secondary school. Some of the frustrating educational reforms they confronted felt jarringly at odds with the still-beneficial aspects of a Shakespearean education.

These strands of thought converged when I was invited to speak to the incoming students at Rhodes College, which led to my essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education — and then to my book.

Photo by Chip Chockley

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 Mellon 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. Prior to my current appointment as Executive Director of the Spence Wilson Center for the Interdisciplinary Humanities, I served as the founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment, a program that helps keep Shakespeare vibrant today.

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.

I'm proud to have been a board member of organizations that sustain lively learning: Beth Sholom Synagogue, the Catherine Project, Libertas School, Opera Memphis, the Rhodes College Board of Trustees, the Rhodes Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and Humanities Tennessee, the state branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

National Humanities Center, Summer Institute in Literary Studies, 2013

Executive Boot Camp program, Alliance for Non-Profit Excellence, 2012

Andrew W. Mellon Special Collections Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University Library, 2005–2007

Ph.D., English and American Language and Literature, Harvard University, 2002

Yeats International Summer School, 1997

Folger Institute, Folger Shakespeare Library, 1996

B.A., English, Grinnell College, 1995 — magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, President′s Medalist

Newberry Library, ACM Research Seminar in the Humanities, 1993

Marshall School, Duluth, 1991

Awards

Fellow, English Association, 2026

Parnassus Prize, Memoria College, 2025

Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research, Rhodes College, 2021

Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching, Rhodes College, 2016

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, translated by Tess Lewis (Princeton UniversityPress, under contract)

Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Race, supported by the Fulbright Commission and the Folger Shakespeare Library

Twinomials: Residual Bilingualism and Philological Citizenship in English Renaissance Literature, supported by the American Philosophical Society

Books

On Close Reading, with John Guillory (University of Chicago Press, 2025)

How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Princeton University Press, 2020; paperback 2021)

Editor, Paradise Lost: A Primer, by Michael Cavanagh (Catholic University of America Press, 2020)

Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) (co-edited with Ayanna Thompson)

Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)

Editor, Kenneth Burke on Shakespeare (Parlor Press, 2007)

Essays and Articles

“Doctor Faustus,” Reading with Orson Welles (2027)

“Learn How to Die,” Memory and Mortality in Renaissance England (2022)

“How to Think like Ira Aldridge,” Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race (2021)

“Creative Imitation: The Survey as an Occasion for Emulating Style,” Teaching the Literature Survey Course: New Strategies for College Faculty (West Virginia UP, 2018).

“Making ‘Music at the Editing Table’: Echoing Verdi in Welles’s Othello,” The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Performance, ed. James. C. Bulman (Oxford UP, 2018)

“Reading Shakespeare Tropically,” Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical Literature (2017)

“‘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)

"The Crafts of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Liberal Arts," Chapter 16 (April 2, 2015); reprinted in 4Humanities, National Civil Rights Museum, Smart City Memphis

"A Plea for ′Close Learning,′" Inside Higher Ed (July 11, 2013); reprinted in Liberal Education (November 2013) and Reinventing Liberal Education (2014).

"Loving and Cherishing ′True′ English: Shakespeare′s Twinomials," Interlinguicity, Internationality, and Shakespeare, ed. Michael Saenger (McGill-Queen′s UP, 2013)

"′A Joint and Corporate Voice′: Reworking Shakespearian Seminars," Shakespeare Survey (2013)

"Memphis as Cultural Crossroads Continues," Smart City Memphis (2012)

"George W as Henry V," co-authored with Harry Berger, Jr., Shakespeare Yearbook special issue on "Shakespeare after 9/11" (2011)

"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)

"Greening Shakespeare in Memphis," Smart City Memphis (2010)

Interview with Welcome Msomi, Shakespeare in Southern Africa (Summer 2009)

"Elizabeth I’s Death Rehearsal," Goddesses and Queens: Iconography of Elizabeth I (Manchester UP, 2007)

Entries in Shakespeares After Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Culture and Popular Culture  (Greenwood Press 2006)

"The Poetics of Closure: Epitaphs Ending Renaissance Elegies ‘Here,’" "Literature of the Graveyard" special issue of Studies in the Literary Imagination (Spring 2006)

"re: vs." Review of the play Quinnopolis vs. Hamlet. Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespearean Appropriation (2006)

Editorial preface to Kenneth Burke essay, Shakespeare Quarterly (Autumn 2006)

"Renewing Burke’s ‘Plea for the Shakespearean Drama,’” Literature Compass (Spring 2006)

"Touch of Shakespeare: Welles Unmoors Othello,” Shakespeare Bulletin (Spring 2005)

"Right Pitches Dubya as Henry V," AlterNet (May 28, 2003)  

Reviews: Annabel Patterson, Milton′s Words in Modern Philology (2013); Eric Langley, Narcissism and Suicide in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries in Forum for Modern Language Studies (2011); Anthony Guneratne, Shakespeare, Film Studies, and the Visual Cultures of Modernity in Renaissance Quarterly (Spring 2010); Stephen Cohen, Shakespeare and Historical Formalism in Shakespeare Quarterly (December 2008); Amy Scott-Douglass, Shakespeare Inside: The Bard Behind Bars in The Upstart Crow (2007); Russ McDonald, Shakespeare′s Late Style in Renaissance Quarterly (Fall 2007); Lawrence Rhu, Stanley Cavell′s American Dream in Shakespeare Bulletin (Winter 2006)

Lectures and Symposia

George Sommer Lecture, Marist University (2025)

Haines Lecture, Sewanee: The University of the South (2023)

Co-organizer (with Stephanie Elsky), “Law and Literature Symposium,” Rhodes College (2023)

James D. Kennedy Lecture in Shakespeare, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (2019)

Lee Lecture, University of St. Thomas (2019)

“Thinking with Shakespeare’s Islands,” Marymount University (2019)

Keynote lecture, Ohio Valley Shakespeare Conference (2018)

Keynote lecture, University of Dallas, biennial Shakespeare conference (2018)

Organizer, Plenary Session on "The End of Study ,” with John Guillory and Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting (March 31, 2018)

Conference paper, “Hearing ‘Here,’” Space, Place, and Image in Early Modern English Literature, Lausanne (2017)

Organizer, “Jews & Muslims in Shakespeare’s World,” Rhodes College (2017)

Invited speaker, “Off Target: Archery, Assessment, and Craft,” Jno Owens Conference, Austin College (2017)

Keynote lecture, “How to Die Like Shakespeare,” Shakespeare's Globe (2016)

Keynote lecture, “The Truth about Shakespeare in Duluth,” Medieval Association of the Midwest, College of St. Scholastica (2016)

Invited Speaker, “Crafty Shakespeare: Theatre as Intellectual Workshop,” University of Mississippi (2016)

Organizer, “1616 Symposium,” Rhodes College (2016)

Invited speaker, “Beyond Shylock: Marlowe’s Jew of Malta on the Elizabethan Stage,” Beth Sholom Lehrhaus, Memphis (2016)

Panel discussion, “Adapting Dido,” Opera Memphis (2015)

Presenter, "Shakespeare and Film" panel, Renaissance Society of America (March 29, 2014)

Invited speaker, "The Crafts of Freedom," Southwestern University (March 18, 2014)

Invited speaker, "Echoes of Verdi in Welles′ Othello," Shackouls Honors College, Mississippi State University (February 20, 2014)

Organizer, "The Past and Future of the Book" symposium, Rhodes College (October 11, 2013)

Participant, "Versions of the Winter′s Tale," Summer Institute in Literary Studies, National Humanities Center (June 23-28, 2013)

"How the American Macbeth Became ′Black,′" invited lecture, University of Geneva (May 24, 2013)

Organizer, "Global Hamlets" symposium, Rhodes College (October 5, 2012)

Seminar member, "Professions and Identity," International Shakespeare Conference, The Shakespeare Institute (August 2012)

Organizer, "1611: A Symposium on the 400th Anniversary of the ′King James′ Bible," Rhodes College  (November 10-11, 2011)

"How Macbeth Became ′Black,′" invited lecture, Agnes Scott College (February 2011) 

"Returns to Philology," graduate seminar at the University of Geneva (September 2010)

"Teaching Writing in the Liberal Arts College," faculty wokshop at the European College of Liberal Arts(ECLA) (September 2010)

Organizer, "Green Shakespeare: A Symposium on Environmental Studies and the Bard," Rhodes College  (March 26, 2010)

"Henry V after September 11, 2001," What′s the Word radio program (September 2009)

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)

"Civics Lessens:  Un-condensing the Seminar," invited lecture, Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies symposium (April 14, 2007)

Organizer, Roundtable on "The Military Theatre: Drafting Shakespeare," Shakespeare Association of America Annual Meeting (April 13, 2006)