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Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy 2025

I am on a mission to share, celebrate and reinvigorate approaches to the teaching and study of literature.

In February 2021, I single-handedly curated and hosted the international ‘Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy’ symposium in the middle of lockdown. You can read about the inaugural event here. #ShakeRacePedagogy2 will be in a podcast format but with the same aim of creating a space for a wide range of people to share their perspectives and experiences of studying and teaching literature.

Dr Wendy Lennon will be in conversation with…

Chris Anthony is a Co-Head of BFA Acting and an Assistant Professor of Acting at The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Bridget Bartlett is a PhD candidate at the University of Mississippi, where they are preparing to defend their dissertation on neurodiversity and racial formation in early modern English drama.

Hannah Elizabeth Bowling is an assistant professor of English at Lincoln University of Missouri, an HBCU located in the capital of Jefferson City.

Dr Thea Buckley is an independent scholar. In 2018-2021 Buckley was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, mentored by Professor Mark Thornton Burnett, on the project 'South Indian Shakespeares: Reimagining Art Forms and Identities'.

Erica W. Cantley is the author of Teaching HAMLET as My Father Died, and the co-host and producer of the podcast Maitre d’ Diaries. Erica taught high school English Literature for 16 years and is currently a New York City maitre d’.

Dr. Koel Chatterjee – English Lecturer at Trinity Laban where she teaches Critical Thinking and Academic Skills. Koel was awarded her PhD in Shakespeare and Bollywood in 2018 from Royal Holloway, University of London and has recently edited a collection of essays on the impact of Indian Shakespeares in the West as part of the Arden series Global Shakespeare Inverted, ed. David Schalkwyk, Silvia Bigliazzi, and Bi-qi Beatrice Lei.

Dr Tracy Irish is an experienced teacher, theatre practitioner and scholar with a specialism in Shakespeare. Currently she is co-leading the Signing Shakespeare project for the University of Birmingham, exploring the accessibility of Shakespeare for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Professor Alexa Alice Joubin is the inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award. She writes about critical AI studies, race, gender, and Shakespeare. She is Professor of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she directs the Digital Humanities Institute.

Xin Ying Lim is a Leverhulme Doctoral Scholar in English Literature at the University of Hull. Her research focuses on indigenizing Shakespeare, ecological narratives, and the emotional effects of colonization on marginalized communities.

Ben Miller is Head of English at Repton School, an independent boarding school in South Derbyshire. After graduating from St-Anne’s College, Oxford, he worked as a teacher of English at Bradfield College, before joining Whitgift School in South Croydon, fulfilling several roles that included Head of Academic Enrichment and Deputy Head of IB. Ben is an active member of both the English Association and NATE, forming part of NATE’s current Post-16 working party. In his spare time, he is studying towards an MA in Shakespeare with Birmingham University and the Shakespeare Institute.

Dr Hassana Moosa is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Cape Town. Her research is in premodern critical race studies, and focusses particularly on the racial formation that occurs in early modern English theatre, and in premodern European literature more broadly.

Liz Oakley-Brown: I am Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, UK. My most recent major publication is the book Shakespeare on the Ecological Surface (Routledge, 2024). In 2022, I was awarded the Faculty’s Dean’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI), an area I am passionate about.

Dr Varsha Panjwani is the host and creator of the Women & Shakespeare podcast (www.womenandshakespeare.com) and is the author of Podcasts and Feminist Shakespeare Pedagogy (CUP, 2022).

Dr Maggie Rose taught at Milan University, where she held the Chair of British Theatre Studies and Performance and is still engaged in research projects and workshops. Her latest play, The Two Sisters, featuring Susanna and Judith Shakespeare, will open in Stratford-on-Avon in June 2025. She is President of English Theatre Milan, which she co-founded in 2019.

Dr Jennifer Lynn Stoever is Associate Professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog.

Further details for the speakers can be found here.