Reflecting on a day of dangerous bushfire conditions in NSW, I recount my leadership responsibilities as a principal, highlighting the shaping force of my English teaching past in my response to certain managerial demands that I faced. I illustrate how the sense of ethical responsibility and a commitment to openness that came to define my…

Reverend Father Professor Amechi Nicholas Akwanya is one of the towering scholars of literature in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world. For decades, and still counting, Fr. Prof. Akwanya has worked arduously, professing literature by way of teaching, researching, and writing in the Department of English and Literary Studies of the University of…

In addition to the methodology of new historicism, this article deploys feminism, performance studies and presentism to discuss the effects of the masculine practice of enforced marriage and turning a deaf ear to the female voice in Thomas Middleton's "Women Beware Women" and contemporary Palestine. I explain that Middleton's "Women…

I argue in this paper that the ability of art to express a holistic experience of life challenges the abstractness and formulaic tendencies of some philosophical ethics. The paper examines the presentation of death in three poet-playwrights--Sophocles's "Oedipus Rex," Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and John Donne's "Meditation XVII." Sophocles's…

In this article, the author shares her experience during the final semester of Year 11 Theatre Studies when she performed a monologue about Hermione from "The Winter's Tale". This experience was extremely significant to her because it nearly made her lose faith in one of the most important parts of her life, drama. She believes this…

In this article, three students share how performing in Shakespearean plays have helped them appreciate his work. Orubba Almansouri describes how acting out the play "Romeo and Juliet" allowed him to understand the whole story better. While rehearsing and performing "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Aram S. Balian became a true Shakespeare fan,…

In universities and elsewhere, might we study Shakespeare to learn about wisdom and how to grow wiser? Assuming with Nicholas Maxwell that wisdom is the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for oneself and others, then I say yes. The testimony is long and strong that being wise goes against our grain, and that even if we can agree that…

The advantages of teaching English literature in an arts classroom through performance are described. The innovative assignments including poetry, applying performance techniques to a novel and drama helps students to learn English in a better way.

Interviews Joseph Papp, director and founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Discusses how to teach Shakespeare to high school students. (MM)

Examines some considerations that Shakespeare's plays raise for students and teachers of political science. Using the plays "Richard II and III" and "Henry IV, V, and VI," Gleicher discusses the genre of the history play, describes the historical and political position from which Shakespeare wrote, and identifies themes in…

Argues that by acting out, rather than only reading Shakespeare's plays, they can be better interpreted and appreciated. (SRT)

An informal survey revealed that graduate students presented with Shakespeare's works felt academically unfit and powerless. These student-teacher-text power relationships parallel the power relationships between the dominant patriarchy and the female characters in "Othello"--Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca. However, "Antony and…

Labeling literary or artistic periods is always tricky, and labeling an emerging period (such as this post-postmodern one) is, of course, impossible. Harold Bloom has labeled this period the "chaotic age" because of the canon wars that have raged among factions. One writer with a place in any canon and who is an anodyne to the chaos of…

Shakespeare's plays are the apex of western achievement in the humanities and as such afford a highly fertile mechanism for teaching gifted elementary and secondary students. Studying Shakespeare facilitates the understanding of an earlier form of the English language and illustrates the evolutionary nature of language. Aside from a sense of…

Calls for a curriculum which uses the plays of Shakespeare to teach human values. Suggests that attention to certain moments within Shakespeare's plays may enhance or refine the understanding of moral qualities. Acknowledges that some critics would deny that those values are universal or eternal. (SG)