Presentation to Faculty: How would I engage Radford's diverse students?  How would I address diversity in an early modern literature course?

Scott O'Neil

First Step: Context

Teaching Philosophy and Situational Intelligence, but also Situational Experience

SAA 2017:  Color of Membership Plenary
     -Dennis Austin Britton (Nikki Giovanni, "Giovanni on 
                                                                                               Shakespeare")

     -Arthur L. Little, Jr.

How I define diversity (Answer: Broadly)

Towson story and how it worked AND failed

• Race
• Economic means
• 1st generation
• Gender
• Disability
• Learning Disability
• Gender Identification and Sexual orientation
• Mental Health

-Some of these categories, I have personal experience

• SJFC Dean moment
• Experience across many lines (don't fit stereotypes, strategic explanation)
• How disconnected students think--Absences and deadlines, expectations of "college"

Other experiences and strategies:

-Text-Free classes
-Theodora
-Accommodations
-Centering yourself can create limitations, however
-Letter Jacket Diagnostic moment (creative vs. effective)

​Enter
Laurent

Now that we know how I got from point A to point B, how do I engage diverse students?

1: Advising and Rapport

• I build rapport and value narratives.
• I look to connect the material in class to things they might be interested in, and leave space to move in that direction when the situation calls for it.  SJFC African American lit class and DS9 episode anecdote. Avatar close reading demo.  GoT Gunpowder Plot cut-away.
• I also look to encourage students to always feel welcome coming to my office for any reason (share Towson cafeteria prof anecdote, coffee shop trials, etc).
• Mug Club and office coffee house

2: Research and staying on top of my field

• Race B4 Race
• SAA Teaching the Pre-Modern in an age of White Supremacy Workshop 
• NYCEA 2017--Marking the Margins and Setting the Center
• 2022 (and 2025) NEH Workshop for HS teachers
• Players' Post--Aldridge and Cushman (Romeo and Juliet, letter from Booth re: statue)

3: Course design and use of Digital Humanities

• Text selection in non-EM classes (Intro to Drama, Intro to Film, Brit Lit Since 1800, YAL, World Lit)
• Assessment (Theater-izing a show, Film Festival, Anthology Gap, Banned Books, Authenticity Paper, Epcot Paper)
• Incorporating DH (Camelot, Blake Archive, Freedom on the Move, MJP, Points Like a Man,)

Act 2:  How do I address diversity in early modern literature courses?

​1: Course/text design

• Teaching presentation (Harryette Mullen, Beyonce)
• Gallathea
• Queen Elizabeth's more notorious (and most often buried) actions
• Eldred D. Jones's  The Elizabethan Image of Africa​ (travel writing, Herodotus, Pliny)
• Poking holes in old narratives (lines in Oronooko)
• Introduce notion of proto-feminism (anchoresses, Marie de France, Lady Mary Wroth, the Swetnam controversy and Rachel Speght, Lanyer, Mary Astell, and Aphra Behn).
• Add Richard Barnfield's sonnets

2: Assessment

• BL1 "Buckets"
  • Merlin Tapestry
  • Noah's War Speeches RPG
  • ​Day in the Life of an Anchoress
  • Alexis' collection of proto-feminist writers
  • Josh's medieval elegy fanfic

• Shakespeare Projects
  • Midsummer Dress
  • Dali
  • Ophelia Blues​​
• Commonplace Book​​

3: Emphasis on incorporating what's been done WITH Shakespeare

• NPR anecdote
• Much Ado public theater production
• Donmar Prison Trilogy
• Bollywood Shakespeares 
• Kurosawa, Kozintsev, Matias Pineiro, Silent era (1921 Asta Nielsen among others)
• Anime (Fate, R and J, etc)
• JEJ King Lear​

Pull up therenaivalist.com/Shakespeare to show Much Ado clip

But also...paying attention to what HASN'T been done with some Shakespearean actors:

• Tree, Olivier, Welles, Gielgud, Branagh, Stewart, McKellen, etc etc are all preserved with most having Criterion Collection box sets.
• Paul Robeson?  The Orson Welles' "Voodoo Macbeth"?  These are (almost completely) lost.  

4: Performance Pedagogy

• Once students see that choices can be made with Shakespeare, they can begin to make their own choices with Shakespeare
• Freddie Gray Henry V
  
• Motown silent Richard III
• Costume design
  
• Set/promotional design
• Jenna: sites.google.com/view/witherspoontheater/home
  
• Kacie's MAAN designs
  

Plans are one thing, but the proof is in (or in this case under) the pudding: