Teaching Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times : Titanic Optimism

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.