My primary teaching fields are Shakespeare, Renaissance Drama, Postcolonial literatures (particularly the literature of the Caribbean), occasionally Modern British Fiction (particularly the work of James Joyce), and, increasingly, film. I have had in the past a special interest in transatlantic representations of the New World from the age of discovery through the beginnings of plantation slavery, and will no doubt be returning to it again in the form of a first-year seminar. I have done considerable research and writing in most of these areas as well.
My first book was entitled Marlowe, Shakespeare, and the Economy of Theatrical Experience (1991) and was awarded the Hoffman Prize for Distinguished Publication on Christopher Marlowe.
My second book is Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations (1999) and addresses appropriations of Shakespeare undertaken in the United States and in Africa and the Caribbean.
I have two new book projects in the offing, one entitled Producing Disorder: the Construction of Misrule in Early Modern England and New England , the second New Wave Shakespeare: Theory, Practice, Pedagogy which will primarily be concerned with the more adventurous recent cinematic reproductions of Shakespeare (like Julie Taymor's recent film Titus) and will be designed for the student reader as well as for fellow academics.
I've taught senior seminars twice in the last four years on James Joyce's Ulysses . The last time around I became particularly intrigued by the unusually influential role the figure of Shakespeare plays in the novel. If I can find the time to do it, I plan on writing an essay on this subject that will be titled "The Face in the Mirror: Shakespeare in/and Joyce's Ulysses. " I also have a long-standing scholarly and teaching interest in the work of the Indo-Caribbean writer, V.S. Naipaul, which I plan on turning to more sustained account in the future. I would be eager to conduct an independent study in this area in particular with a student who shares some of my interests. I also see myself working more directly in the area of film in the future, and may consider collaborating with other college faculty to develop a minor in film studies. I am particularly interested in the new turn to realism in American independent film and in the kinds of films championed by the Dogma 95 group in Denmark ( Dancer in the Dark ), and by less well-known French and Belgian film-makers who have recently brought powerfully minimalist films like Rosetta and L'Humanite to the screen. |
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