A full-time, full on, three-week immersion into the holds that Shakespeare and early America have had on each other. You’ll work with 24 other curious, eager, and committed middle and high school teachers and a faculty of scholars, performance experts, and mentor teachers. With full attention to the roles that indigenous, Black, brown, and Latinx people played during this slice of history, we’ll dive deeply into two plays—The Merchant of Venice (c.1596) and The Tempest (1611)—as well as evidence and documents from Early Modern and early American history and Historic Jamestowne. Shakespeare’s “majestic vision” was clearly shaped by the colonization of America, and his work in turn shaped America through the wonders and plunders he envisioned in his plays. We’re eager to get at this.
You will be in lecture and seminar, in performance sessions, and curriculum classes—in plenary sessions, breakouts, small groups, and large-scale interactive sessions too. You will be collaborating with your colleagues and with faculty as well as pursuing individual work. You will be busy.
Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, each participant will receive an NEH stipend of $2850.
When: June 27–July 17, 2021
Where: Virtual
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