Dr. Jo Miller

In this seminar we will read plays from all of Shakespeare’s four major genres: History, Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance. In addition to practicing the art of close reading and literary analysis, these plays will allow us to interrogate our own cultural values and beliefs with questions about gender and sexuality, identity, race, class, and power.

The Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival will take place in September 2018 with a performance of King Lear and a scholarly conference on campus, which offers us a bonus for exploring the social and historical contexts of the plays as theatrical performances and examining Shakespeare’s enduring status as a playwright whose works have been continually adapted for the stage, the page, and the screen over the last 400 years.