Sharon O’Dair – författare

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.

This book addresses the profound crisis facing professors of Shakespeare in non-elite and regional public universities in the US, providing a set of bold solutions to these problems.The study of Shakespeare, once considered untouchable, now struggles in an era where higher education is too expensive and too politicized. An enrolment drop is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to decades of neoliberal institutional management and public financial disinvestment, resulting in widespread structural cuts, department consolidation and the elimination of specialized curricula. How do professors cope aboard what feels like a sinking ship?Rather than stick to what is familiar, this book offers 9 essays characterized by ‘Titanic optimism’, emphasizing both pragmatic survival and pedagogical reinvention. From case studies of thriving new applied humanities programs to guerrilla tactics of embedding Shakespeare within generalist courses, these strategies offer performance-based, joy-centred learning to cultivate essential 21st-century skills, providing activities that counter the use of AI. They explore more creative forms of scholarship that embrace uncertainty and pedagogical approaches that resist programmatic models in order to build communities and underscore the arts’ cultural value for diverse student populations. Relevant not only to Shakespeareans but the humanities more broadly, this book is a vital guide for any faculty seeking to adapt their praxis, resist the market takeover of education and ensure the enduring importance of critical humanistic inquiry.

Through the discursive political lenses of Occupy Wall Street and the 99%, this volume of essays examines the study of Shakespeare and of literature more generally in today’s climate of educational and professional uncertainty. Acknowledging the problematic relationship of higher education to the production of inequity and hierarchy in our society, essays in this book examine the profession, our pedagogy, and our scholarship in an effort to direct Shakespeare studies, literary studies, and higher education itself toward greater equity for students and professors. Covering a range of topics from diverse positions and perspectives, these essays confront and question foundational assumptions about higher education, and hence society, including intellectual merit and institutional status.  These essays comprise a timely conversation critical for understanding our profession in “post-Occupy” America.