Speaking of Shakespeare

SoS #1 |Sarah Olive: Global Shakespeares

March 03, 2021 Thomas Season 1 Episode 1
Speaking of Shakespeare
SoS #1 |Sarah Olive: Global Shakespeares
Show Notes Transcript

Thomas Dabbs and Professor Sarah Olive speak about teaching during the Covid pandemic, about sound educational practice in teaching Shakespeare, and about Shakespearean performance. Dabbs and Olive also discuss issues concerning global adaptation and transgender representations in Shakespearean production and performance.

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[Music]
Hello everyone,

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This is Speaking of Shakespeare, a series
of conversations about things

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Shakespearean,
with a focus on new digital technology

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and teaching and research
and also about developments in

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Shakespearean performance in education
across the globe.

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I'm Thomas Dabbs, recording today from
Aoyama Gakuin University

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in central Tokyo. This series is funded
by a generous grant

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from the Japan Society for the Promotion
of Science

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called Kakenhi, and this organization
thankfully includes support for research

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in the humanities.
Today is September 28, 2020, [pre-recorded]

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and we will be speaking with Professor
Sarah Olive

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of the University of York on many
subjects,

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but with a focus on Shakespearean
education across the globe

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and during a pandemic. Sarah was born in
the UK

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and moved to Australia as a teenager. She
majored in English

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at the University of Adelaide before
completing her doctoral work at the

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University of Cambridge.
She also took a second degree in

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Shakespearean studies at the Shakespeare
Institute,

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University of Birmingham, where she now
contributes

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to their programs as a visiting lecturer.
Good morning, Sarah, it's morning for you

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Morning Tom. It's not morning for me
and for anyone listening I'm in Tokyo

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and Sarah you're in York, are you in York
now?

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I am actually in Stratford-Upon-Avon, so
that's a lot more relevant

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for what we're talking about. Yes there
we are.

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How are things going these days? They are
going well we are just about to start

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term,
so shortly i'll start a weekly commute

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thatI do between Stratford-Upon-Avon
and York and we will be doing some

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campus teaching
and a lot of online teaching a lot of

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online teaching
uh in the spring semester did you do

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online
teaching have you done it we had

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almost
finished actually because at least in

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the UK a lot of universities
um particularly places like york and

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birmingham tend not to
do a lot of teaching in the summer term

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it's kind of a revision or kind of a
preparation

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for assignment sort of term so this is
really going to be my first introduction

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to it
well welcome because we of course you

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know the
Japan semester system is almost

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completely reversed from anywhere else
and we've been teaching online already

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for
our Spring Semester, so

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all of us are seasoned veterans and
as such

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maybe many of us are not looking forward
to the coming term.

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We're on about the same schedule for
fall term.

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We've already begun and you haven't
begun yet right

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noI mean maybe some of the--
soI guess in the UK higher education

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system we kind of have the split of like
kind of research intensive

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universities and the teaching intensive
universities and the teaching intensive

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ones have probably gone back already
and then these kind of traditional

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orI guessI don't want to say Ivy
League exactly, but that kind of

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notion are maybe hanging on and we
just start at the start of October.

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Yeah it's sort of the same in the States
that the more um

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well-received the university is that
the later they start the less teaching

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you do
the less teaching the less you do and

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that's just the way it is so you will
be and you will be doing some

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face-to-face like tutorials is that
right

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smaller yeah that's that's absolutely
right so, I think York is,

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has some kind of rule like 10 students
on campus

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sorry in a room you know for maybe a
small group

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session so all of our big modules have
been broken up. We will

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kind of repeat tutorials
for as many groups as necessary and I'm

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quite lucky.
English and education, we've got an

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intimate group so I don't have to repeat
too many times.

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Yeah some good faculty there you have
good colleagues

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I know some of the names, if I don't know
people personally, I know some

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several other people by reputation
uh and in particular one guy named Jowett

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did some work with my advisor when I was
in graduate school

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and yeah my advisor wasn't the
easiest guy in the world to work with. He

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he became more happy
and and he was extremely good but

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that's maybe we can talk about that
later. And it's 2020, the year of the

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plague
and of course that has a Shakespearean

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connection and we will make that
and what I wanted to do in these talks

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is maybe avoid things that are
extremely topical, particularly in

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in politics those things that I don't
remember from a year ago that

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made me angry on the 28th a year ago
but anything that a year from now will

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still have some resonance I think
is fair game for any of our

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conversations and we can also talk about
contemporary

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things that are going on, which you do
quite a lot now I've been looking

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at your credentials and your work and
I'm convinced that there are two

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maybe three Sarah Olives out there. I
don't know how anyone can be

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so productive in so many areas you, you
have

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two or three, arguably three maybe more
academic specialties and you also are

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very active
in the grant, doing

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work for various grants, and tell us what
you're doing now and what is

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we'll be doing what you, well you were
on holiday, but what have you been doing

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recently
and in the near future.

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Well Sarah Olive number one spent her
summer pretty much

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putting in grant applications as you
mentioned so

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at least in the UK system it's something
that

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we call them highers and better so our
senior member of staff

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would be kind of checking on our
productivity in that way

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and I find it's quite useful to to bunch
up all those funding applications

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together and kind of spend a chunk of
time on them because their very nature

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you tend to
[Music]

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kind of evolve an idea and then maybe
you shoot off like three different

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applications around that so for meI was
looking

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at I'm interested a little bit like
this

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project that you've got going and how
people are teaching Shakespeare in the

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pandemic, so that's
one thing I would like to get some

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funding on.
I'm still trying on that score so far

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but certainly to go around the world and
kind of be asking

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so how is the pandemic affecting your
teaching of Shakespeare some countries

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you know it's been fairly minimal, so i
have a colleague in Vietnam who said

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well maybe there were two sessions
where I was doing some I wanted to do

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some drama
wanted to get the students on their

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feet
moving around and performing Shakespeare

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and that was out
but he has since been able to resume

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all of that active methods work that he
would normally do with Shakespeare

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so it kind of made me aware that there's
a lot of variation

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andI really want to find a way to
capture that even if it's just towards

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something like
an issue of teaching Shakespeare

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magazine to have different people saying
well it didn't affect me much or it

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completely wiped out
my optional module you know that kind of

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variety
yeah what what I've experienced so

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far
is that number one there was there

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were some
what is this it's sort of like

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Kubler-Ross's stages of death,
where you go from one state to another

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you know denial and then
yeah anger I'm not sure what order it

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goes into
and what this is it, it doesn't lead to

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death, it leads to
something that's okay in the end

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and but the first the first stage is
confusion

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and I don't know what sort of LMS
you're working on

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online what what what are you using
for oh this is like a

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online learning environment like a
Blackboard or at

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that sort of thing yeah I mean
York uses Blackboard and

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it's pretty flexible. You seem to be able
to kind of upload or embed or

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do all of those sorts of things you want
to to kind of keep things nice and

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multi-modal and have audio and have
visual

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and have material that you produce and
also share

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you know obviously things like videos
yeah

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um we were faced with we had rather long
class sessions that go an hour and a

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half

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questions some study questions that they
could do during the class time

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stick around and they come in and at
first it didn't work that well

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and some of the forms that I set up for
them to submitI was using Google

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Classrooms
didn't work, and so we had that confusion

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that came
but after a while it sort of got into a

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little bit of a routine just like any
class

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and in some ways I felt like I
connected with the students maybe a

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little better
because I normally don't put up little

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week-to-week study questions
and so you know they can get sort of

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lazy during the middle of the term
and so can their professor particularly

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as it starts getting hot
in the, into Tokyo summer and so

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things evened out and there.
I would just say that there there are

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some very positive things that happened
and they will for you too. I'm sorry I'm

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really
excited for it in some ways so we've

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been briefed very similarly to you we
would normally

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at least in the education department
at York

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we actually tend not to do the
traditional English department style

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thing of like a one-hour lecture
followed by

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50-minute tutorials we do a two-hour
seminar

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normally and that's a mix of whatever
you make it as a lecturer so for me it's

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normallyI talk a bit and then we throw
it over to group activities

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and it's been reasonably easy to
replicate that at least as far as I can

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tell you know obviously I haven't had
the feedback yet because the classes

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we've not kind of undertaken them but to
record

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short videos and I've really enjoyed
doing things like I think when you work

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on things like Shakespeare and
performance

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one of the things I did was to take the
Helen Hirren 'Tempest,' where she becomes

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a female Prospero, rather than the male
Prospero,

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wizard character and to
record well to play that using screen

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share
but kind of pausing it where I wanted to

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bring out a scene or to ask students a
question

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or even just something as simple as like
glossing

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a word that they use or a phrase
so I really enjoyed that facility to

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actually
watch lots of productions that i

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enjoy
and it's almost like my classes sat

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there with me as
as my friends with the popcorn and the

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you know we're eating and we're chatting
and

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okay I'm not yet getting the bit where
they throw things back at me

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and say what does that mean or
you explain this but actually the thing

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we're struggling with
is the use of bow or something like that

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so that's been enjoyable and then
another tool that we're going to be

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using is
Padlet I don't know if you've come

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across it. I think it's
partly freely available online and then

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it's kind of as always a kind of
professional

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subscription thing and I have
certainly set those up

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for a lot of my modules in order to
gather that kind of

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question and answer and discussion
side of things so I'm interested to

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see how that gets used obviously at the
moment

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I've just done the setup. I don't know
what the response will be like

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I do like what looks like the potential
for students to

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instead of maybe if you're feeling
particularly shy perhaps rather than

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writing out like a mini essay I think
the facility to say

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well here are some relevant links I
found what about

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these or here are some stills from
this production that really illuminate

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the ideas
of 'The Tempest' or some of the themes and

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to throw those up
I hope that that might invite some of

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those quieter students to participate
Yeah, yeah well you know in Japan almost

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all of my students are the quieter type,
and what I was very thrilled with in our--

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we have a seminar
an undergraduate and graduate seminar

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and right off the bat the graduate
seminar they're on

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and their faces are in and they get to
know each other and they're just a few

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kids in that class not kids really,
they're young

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adults full adults because they're
graduates but

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in my undergraduate class they were a
little shy at first and then there were

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12 students
everyone came on and now I can joke with

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them
and they can do their own presentations

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and I can do
like you're saying we can do multimedia

0:14:16.560,0:14:21.040
much more effectively. I am looking
forward to being back in the classroom

0:14:21.040,0:14:24.079
and
face-to-face but in the interim there's

0:14:24.079,0:14:26.240
some things that have worked a bit
better

0:14:26.240,0:14:30.480
that have been pleasant surprises and
have been some failures

0:14:30.480,0:14:34.000
you know it's the old movie if you
remember the old Mel Gibson you have

0:14:34.000,0:14:38.880
some Australian experience
'The Year of Living Dangerously,' I just

0:14:38.880,0:14:42.720
call this
the year of teaching imperfectly and

0:14:42.720,0:14:47.360
you know why not and and I'm finding
that maybe more affirming than anything

0:14:47.360,0:14:51.920
that
lowering expectations to realistic

0:14:51.920,0:14:57.279
degrees has given has given me more joy
and I think the students

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play off of that too when they see
something work

0:15:01.279,0:15:06.320
in a new learning environment so

0:15:06.399,0:15:10.560
that's that's what's to be expected and
that and I know that you will just do

0:15:10.560,0:15:13.760
splendidly
you have to you connect with people

0:15:13.760,0:15:17.360
so well well I should say I mean one of
the great

0:15:17.360,0:15:20.959
benefits of having friends in Japan
for me

0:15:20.959,0:15:27.600
has been actually watching um
you know through media like Facebook my

0:15:27.600,0:15:30.399
friends
in Japan trying out different teaching

0:15:30.399,0:15:33.519
techniques and
you know being, I mean, I feel awful in a

0:15:33.519,0:15:38.079
way you guys were thrown right at the
forefront of the pandemic like you say

0:15:38.079,0:15:43.360
into your academic year that's how it
it started really in Japan but it's been

0:15:43.360,0:15:47.199
incredibly instructive
for those of us who've been on a kind of

0:15:47.199,0:15:52.000
summer vacation
at the moment just to see like ah

0:15:52.000,0:15:56.320
oh people developing pedagogies around
you know camera on camera off or

0:15:56.320,0:16:01.120
whatever else
it's really someone had to go first and

0:16:01.120,0:16:04.399
it's been really beneficial
for those of us who didn't have to go

0:16:04.399,0:16:09.279
first to kind of
pick up those tips and also

0:16:09.279,0:16:12.959
even if it's something like hearing
about the kind of added fatigue that you

0:16:12.959,0:16:17.600
should
expect to feel after teaching online

0:16:17.600,0:16:20.639
and the students also and and that
sort of thing

0:16:20.639,0:16:24.079
and they're also varying degrees now we
have had

0:16:24.079,0:16:28.240
stories and this doesn't have anything
to do with my university but

0:16:28.240,0:16:31.839
of course we're in contact with people
all around Tokyo and Japan

0:16:31.839,0:16:36.000
uh but some professors have taken the
opportunity just maybe to up

0:16:36.000,0:16:40.480
PDFs and say read them and
you know that kind of thing and there

0:16:40.480,0:16:43.680
have been some student complaints. I
haven't heard of any

0:16:43.680,0:16:47.120
in our institution, I think we've done
extremely well,

0:16:47.120,0:16:51.120
particularly in our faculty because we
just have some really good people

0:16:51.120,0:16:55.519
and I'm gonna have to say me excluded
because I have to show

0:16:55.519,0:17:00.800
a proper degree of humility I'm
in Tokyo, I'm in a Japanese culture.

0:17:00.800,0:17:04.480
But we did 'Romeo and Juliet' in the
seminar

0:17:04.480,0:17:08.880
and I had to, we have an open campus
every year and we had to have an online

0:17:08.880,0:17:12.160
open campus so, I had to do a little
thing for high schoolers

0:17:12.160,0:17:17.199
and I figured out how to do subtitles
and I talked about iambic pentameter,

0:17:17.199,0:17:22.079
which fascinates my students I
think--When I taught this back in

0:17:22.079,0:17:25.760
the States years ago
that was the cue to just fall into a

0:17:25.760,0:17:29.600
coma in class,
when I started talking about meter and

0:17:29.600,0:17:34.000
rhyme and
you know it is sort of stereotypical

0:17:34.000,0:17:39.120
that Japanese students
like to see that structure

0:17:39.120,0:17:43.840
typically and particularly the best
students, so I can use that little video

0:17:43.840,0:17:48.880
i can reuse these things so and also
I've had to structure classes

0:17:48.880,0:17:55.360
far better thanI did before
and that'sI feel likeI should have

0:17:55.360,0:18:00.240
done this 20 years ago
i agree on that point that it's been um

0:18:00.240,0:18:04.080
kind of revelatory for me
in terms of normallyI would approach a

0:18:04.080,0:18:06.960
class by
grabbing a pile of books out of my

0:18:06.960,0:18:10.880
office and
grabbing some lecture notes that I've

0:18:10.880,0:18:14.880
used for a long time that kind of
they tend to be bullet points about what

0:18:14.880,0:18:19.120
i want to talk on and
maybe one or two specific bits of

0:18:19.120,0:18:22.320
information
or quotations thatI want to use as a

0:18:22.320,0:18:26.320
springboard to
arrange the class around andI realized

0:18:26.320,0:18:30.799
that without that
physical presence and without

0:18:30.799,0:18:35.919
necessarily being able to read students
faces and emotions and energy levels

0:18:35.919,0:18:42.160
i need to scale back a lot and to be
to take people's hands much more and to

0:18:42.160,0:18:45.120
guide them
like we're going to do this first so i

0:18:45.120,0:18:49.280
found in my
online teaching I've been using every

0:18:49.280,0:18:53.520
item thatI put up there on the
virtual learning environment. I tried to

0:18:53.520,0:18:57.039
kind of have it now and read as well to
make it more exciting

0:18:57.039,0:19:00.160
you know if you kind of post this is a
PDF

0:19:00.160,0:19:04.080
from so-and-so's article in
Shakespeare Survey,

0:19:04.080,0:19:07.360
but if you say like read this explore
this

0:19:07.360,0:19:11.840
discover this I think there's, it
motivates you as well as the students

0:19:11.840,0:19:15.280
and it also makes
very clear what you're expecting of

0:19:15.280,0:19:19.120
people and what it is you're asking them
to do. So it's been great for me to

0:19:19.120,0:19:26.240
to pair back whatI do and also
to kind of force me to sequence it

0:19:26.240,0:19:29.679
in a way thatI i normally would kind of
we'll just see

0:19:29.679,0:19:33.280
where the students want to go and where
the energy is at in the room

0:19:33.280,0:19:38.000
but actually to force me to create
actually much more logical

0:19:38.000,0:19:42.480
sequence thanI would perhaps like but
it's nonetheless been a really good

0:19:42.480,0:19:46.240
exercise
and you're training anytime now I know

0:19:46.240,0:19:50.559
that you
you did a work in education, humanities

0:19:50.559,0:19:55.280
education at Cambridge and then
you also did work at the Shakespeare

0:19:55.280,0:19:58.559
Institute
connected with Birmingham and

0:19:58.559,0:20:02.799
that's
located in Stratford and

0:20:02.799,0:20:09.840
so in that,
in that training

0:20:09.840,0:20:13.440
what sorts of things would you say would
be

0:20:13.440,0:20:17.679
the things that you've learned and
of course keeping up with your field

0:20:17.679,0:20:24.960
that you see old, well, boomers like me
not not adapting to and and not

0:20:24.960,0:20:29.520
and being resistant you know. I come
from, I don't even want to tell you how

0:20:29.520,0:20:33.760
sexist the
first academic, what master's program

0:20:33.760,0:20:36.880
I
was in. I did a master's degree at a

0:20:36.880,0:20:40.480
fairly prestigious place that I won't
mention now they changed completely

0:20:40.480,0:20:46.480
but there were five men two of them
told me personally they didn't take

0:20:46.480,0:20:50.880
women seriously as scholars.
That's how old I am and that's

0:20:50.880,0:20:54.559
where we're coming from
you know and so I'm also coming from a

0:20:54.559,0:20:57.520
pedagogical environment
fortunately I had very progressive

0:20:57.520,0:21:01.840
teachers in the next program I was in
and we were taught more process oriented

0:21:01.840,0:21:05.919
learning, more
you know all the things de-centering

0:21:05.919,0:21:09.600
yourself as a teacher not just
talking to the students and expecting

0:21:09.600,0:21:13.039
them to you know
write down everything you say but what

0:21:13.039,0:21:17.760
sort of things you think in the past
five years or so may have come up that

0:21:17.760,0:21:21.039
that professors you know of a certain
age should

0:21:21.039,0:21:26.080
should pay attention to and and adapt to.
Wow, I mean that's a great question I

0:21:26.080,0:21:31.679
actually think some of my
more senior colleagues and

0:21:31.679,0:21:35.520
professors actually have been the ones
who pushed me a little harder in some

0:21:35.520,0:21:39.200
ways I don't know maybe
maybe there's an ability once you get a

0:21:39.200,0:21:43.120
bit past your Ph.D. to look
quite broadly at what's happening in

0:21:43.120,0:21:49.120
higher education
so but what developmentsI mean

0:21:49.120,0:21:53.760
I am lucky to be in a department where i
don't think there's resistance to this

0:21:53.760,0:21:57.280
at all
butI am particularly interested in

0:21:57.280,0:22:03.200
things like decolonizing the curriculum
and maybe that comes from having some

0:22:03.200,0:22:07.039
experience
across the world or in various places so

0:22:07.039,0:22:11.679
doing research in Australia
doing some research in Japan and Vietnam

0:22:11.679,0:22:17.679
and Hong Kong
so I think for me particularly teaching

0:22:17.679,0:22:22.640
English literature right
I have had to maybe get past my own

0:22:22.640,0:22:27.840
teaching which
happened in Australiam it did include um

0:22:27.840,0:22:32.320
quite a lot of American writing some
South African writing

0:22:32.320,0:22:37.039
I'm trying to think of where else we
didn't tend to have very much from

0:22:37.039,0:22:43.600
Asia or the subcontinent particularly
so for me it's been kind of moving

0:22:43.600,0:22:47.679
away from my own
particularly at school a kind of great

0:22:47.679,0:22:52.559
traditions a level site
like you will do the Brontes and you

0:22:52.559,0:22:55.280
will do
Austin. I mean I'm lucky that those are

0:22:55.280,0:22:58.480
women writers featured fairly
prominently

0:22:58.480,0:23:02.880
but I think my--I feel like my early
encounters with English were probably

0:23:02.880,0:23:06.480
pretty
choked up around Shakespeare and

0:23:06.480,0:23:10.320
19th century fiction and you can see
that if you look at the national

0:23:10.320,0:23:14.080
curriculum for English
there is a lot of emphasis on that plus

0:23:14.080,0:23:18.799
maybe World War I poetry
and for me it's been a case of having to

0:23:18.799,0:23:22.960
say
well I'm lucky that my own kind of

0:23:22.960,0:23:25.760
personal reading I enjoy reading more
 
0:23:24.880,0:23:28.400
widely I've

0:23:25.760,0:23:30.480
really really enjoyed engaging
engaging with a lot of popular Japanese

0:23:30.480,0:23:34.799
writers
like Kirino Natsuo maybe popular

0:23:34.799,0:23:38.080
genres as well so
she writes a lot of kind of detective or

0:23:38.080,0:23:43.039
murder fiction
and then kind of asking myself what

0:23:43.039,0:23:47.120
out of those things that I've read more
recently and from

0:23:47.120,0:23:50.159
a very wide range of writers do I want
to

0:23:50.159,0:23:53.679
put there on the curriculum and
sometimes it is a relation to

0:23:53.679,0:23:57.360
Shakespeare. You know the way that people
will appropriate Shakespeareans well

0:23:57.360,0:24:00.799
there's always
anonymity.

0:24:01.520,0:24:05.039
I've never failed to make the connection
because all these people

0:24:05.039,0:24:08.799
read Shakespeare almost to the person I
don't--I think it would--

0:24:08.799,0:24:12.080
you could almost say 100 percent are
influenced

0:24:12.080,0:24:17.919
in some way and I noticed that you have
a recent article on Cleopatra and Anne

0:24:17.919,0:24:24.240
Rice--years ago one of my favorite--
that just sit down and read novelist the

0:24:24.240,0:24:28.159
Interview with the Vampire and so forth.
I haven't read the mummy or the--what's

0:24:28.159,0:24:33.039
the other title
oh this Ramsay's the Damned yeah

0:24:33.039,0:24:36.960
but and I haven't gotten through all
of your paper there but that's the sort

0:24:36.960,0:24:40.799
of thing you are doing you're
linking popular culture with

0:24:40.799,0:24:45.279
Shakespearean
influences and

0:24:45.279,0:24:51.600
not just genre wise but in in much more
of what micro--

0:24:51.600,0:24:58.840
microscopic ways that examine,
what, the history of consciousness

0:24:58.840,0:25:03.360
that appears. I love that, I'm going to
take that and use that as one of the key

0:25:03.360,0:25:06.880
words maybe you know when
for example academic journals ask you

0:25:06.880,0:25:10.480
provide six keywords
maybe I'll just add in their history of

0:25:10.480,0:25:15.840
consciousness but yeah that was
it means anything

0:25:16.799,0:25:20.400
well I reckon it will show up in some
you know we'll get the philosophers

0:25:20.400,0:25:23.039
reading
our papers if we do that but yeah it was

0:25:23.039,0:25:26.400
certainly something I was working on
over summer was expanding

0:25:26.400,0:25:30.480
so apart from Sarah number one was busy
doing research bids.

0:25:30.480,0:25:36.480
Sarah number two was busy
i didn't do--I did one one or two bits of

0:25:36.480,0:25:39.919
fresh writing this summer but a lot of
the time it's reviewing things that are

0:25:39.919,0:25:42.480
about to
come out you're looking at the proofs of

0:25:42.480,0:25:48.080
them and
yeah I had not the Anne Rice article but

0:25:48.080,0:25:52.799
a similar chapter that I've been working
on in relation to 'Romeo and Juliet'

0:25:52.799,0:25:56.400
in young adult vampire fiction that
has been

0:25:56.400,0:26:00.559
an absolute joy to me to read and I'm
sure that many of your students are

0:26:00.559,0:26:04.559
familiar with Stephenie Meyer and with
the Twilight saga,

0:26:04.559,0:26:07.840
whether they've read the books or
whether you've seen the films.

0:26:07.840,0:26:11.200
I think people have a lot of
consciousness of that

0:26:11.200,0:26:14.880
but also looking at some less unknown
there are some brilliant vampire

0:26:14.880,0:26:19.039
fictions
by other authors like stacey Jay,

0:26:19.039,0:26:24.320
set in California for example set among
vampires among the vineyards. This is

0:26:24.320,0:26:29.520
really the best possible combination
of things for me

0:26:29.520,0:26:33.840
so I was, I'm particularly interested in
the way that a lot of those

0:26:33.840,0:26:37.679
young adult novels with vampires and
with Shakespeare

0:26:37.679,0:26:44.720
do a lot of work around consent actually
and gendered violence and um

0:26:44.720,0:26:48.480
kind of educating young people about
relationships which

0:26:48.480,0:26:55.440
to me in the UK we have some form of
like relationships education in in many

0:26:55.440,0:26:59.520
schools
if not most schools I know in the US

0:26:59.520,0:27:04.320
it's perhaps a little bit more
politically febrile about

0:27:04.320,0:27:08.640
what can be covered in classes around
that what kind of

0:27:08.640,0:27:12.480
sex and relationships education is
appropriate but I really thought

0:27:12.480,0:27:16.480
these novels that are aimed at young
people they're not primarily

0:27:16.480,0:27:21.520
meant to be didactic they're not like
the novels that I was given to read

0:27:21.520,0:27:24.240
about that whenI was at school and we
were set

0:27:24.240,0:27:28.399
I'm trying to remember which American
young adult author it is now that we

0:27:28.399,0:27:32.399
were set to be like
this woman will teach you about how to

0:27:32.399,0:27:35.600
have your first
boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever it

0:27:35.600,0:27:39.279
might be
these are primarily like pleasure and

0:27:39.279,0:27:43.279
leisure reading
but they managed to kind of do something

0:27:43.279,0:27:47.760
actually really feminist
around modeling strong female characters

0:27:47.760,0:27:51.440
who
say stop now that's enough or

0:27:51.440,0:27:55.840
I don't think you should be hitting
that guy over there

0:27:55.840,0:27:59.919
and they do some really interesting
things for young people about

0:27:59.919,0:28:04.240
about how to have conversations about
your relationships or how to have

0:28:04.240,0:28:09.520
conversations about
violence and I it just fascinates

0:28:09.520,0:28:16.240
me that you can use Shakespeare to do
that kind of work yes you can and

0:28:16.240,0:28:20.799
it comes up all the time in my
classes now I must say two things

0:28:20.799,0:28:24.960
number one in the United States the key
word is 'united' states

0:28:24.960,0:28:29.600
everything right every State and
sometimes you can break it down to

0:28:29.600,0:28:33.039
counties
have different boards of education and

0:28:33.039,0:28:36.480
so you don't get the national
consolidation that you would get

0:28:36.480,0:28:42.399
in the UK and that you would have a
stronger centralized board and in fact

0:28:42.399,0:28:46.960
people in the States very much resist
on both sides throughout the political

0:28:46.960,0:28:51.039
spectrum, they resist
being told on a national level what

0:28:51.039,0:28:53.440
to do. There's,
there's a lot of resistance and there

0:28:53.440,0:28:58.640
are a lot of little issues that come up
for instance whether the 'N word' is

0:28:58.640,0:29:03.840
used in a particular text by a
you know a character who is not an

0:29:03.840,0:29:07.120
admirable character
or whether it comes up in a movie and so

0:29:07.120,0:29:10.799
forth
recently for an introductory class that

0:29:10.799,0:29:14.159
had to teach Flannery O'Connor, who's
just brilliant, it's just brilliant all

0:29:14.159,0:29:16.720
the way through,
'A Good Man is Hard to Find,'--there's

0:29:16.720,0:29:19.840
just no better way to introduce a
student to literature,

0:29:19.840,0:29:22.960
but the 'N-word' is in there from a very
bad character

0:29:22.960,0:29:26.480
and also you know other things that
pop up

0:29:26.480,0:29:30.159
and what has fascinated me is it never
has come up

0:29:30.159,0:29:34.000
I think in Arizona there was a move
against 'The Tempest' when someone in, from

0:29:34.000,0:29:37.520
a very conservative
background said oh they're using that to

0:29:37.520,0:29:41.760
teach America
is a colonial and Europe is colonial

0:29:41.760,0:29:45.039
and they're doing this and we need... I'm
going, Pal, have you ever read 'The

0:29:45.039,0:29:47.360
Tempest.'
you know like there are a lot of things

0:29:47.360,0:29:51.520
you can do with 'The Tempest'
and and there is colonialism I mean

0:29:51.520,0:29:54.880
it's flat out
a guy taking over an island and

0:29:54.880,0:30:00.559
people there and there
all of that is there but

0:30:00.559,0:30:04.159
for instance the beginning of 'The
Tempestk'==

0:30:04.159,0:30:08.799
i almost did a paper on Thomas Bowdler's--
[Music]

0:30:08.799,0:30:13.760
listen we make fun of this guy but and
and a lot of people don't know you know

0:30:13.760,0:30:18.480
the activity his wife had in it you know
the role that his wife played in that

0:30:18.480,0:30:22.880
which is
a little mysterious but it was big

0:30:22.880,0:30:26.240
but that made Shakespeare readable at
home

0:30:26.240,0:30:29.279
and if you read the first few lines of
'The Tempest'

0:30:29.279,0:30:32.320
and they're talk--they're comparing the
storm

0:30:32.320,0:30:38.399
with this strumpet and other
elements of this strumpet's anatomy,

0:30:38.399,0:30:41.600
it really isn't somethingI would feel
comfortable teaching to

0:30:41.600,0:30:44.640
a 15-year-old you know in a mixed
setting. It's

0:30:44.640,0:30:50.480
it's, and they they cut it out
and as a result made, popularized

0:30:50.480,0:30:54.640
Shakespeare
made it appropriate for Victorian home

0:30:54.640,0:30:59.440
reading you know for
the father to read to the students but

0:30:59.440,0:31:03.840
there's so many places the beginning of
'Romeo and Juliet' with those two

0:31:03.840,0:31:08.399
worthless,
worthless guys Samson, Samson and Gregory

0:31:08.399,0:31:11.760
talking about
you know it gets down to genitalia and

0:31:11.760,0:31:16.000
rape and anything
you know hahaha locker room conversation

0:31:16.000,0:31:18.080
and of course in Japan I can't get
around

0:31:18.080,0:31:23.120
it because these these kids--we go line-
t0-line sometimes and I have to explain

0:31:23.120,0:31:29.039
coal carring and collier, maidenhead, and
thrusting the the maiden against the

0:31:29.039,0:31:32.320
wall, that sort of stuff,
you know very violent stuff and they're

0:31:32.320,0:31:36.240
okay
they they're okay of course. I'm in

0:31:36.240,0:31:41.120
college
so I guess what I'm saying is I'm

0:31:41.120,0:31:44.240
happy that the
the censors have not gotten back around

0:31:44.240,0:31:49.039
to Shakespeare
yeah and but there is stuff in there

0:31:49.039,0:31:54.399
that is very difficult to
ucover yeah and that's that what's

0:31:54.399,0:31:57.120
interesting in what you're saying is
that it's

0:31:57.120,0:32:00.799
so for example I think in the UK people
often when they want to talk about those

0:32:00.799,0:32:03.279
difficult things to
teach in Shakespeare. They'll often

0:32:03.279,0:32:08.320
mention maybe
some of the I don't know obscure or more

0:32:08.320,0:32:12.840
difficult or
problem place things like 'Measure for

0:32:12.840,0:32:16.080
Measure'
you know whether you should sleep with

0:32:16.080,0:32:20.000
someone to save your brother's life
against your will--those kinds but

0:32:20.000,0:32:23.279
actually it's really interesting you
mentioned 'Romeo and Juliet'

0:32:23.279,0:32:26.799
so it can be in the place that we think
are the most

0:32:26.799,0:32:32.559
suitable plays to introduce young people
to Shakespeare and I think that

0:32:32.559,0:32:36.640
absolutely
fascinates me are

0:32:36.640,0:32:39.760
the way that people make judgments about
things so

0:32:39.760,0:32:43.760
uh oh 'Romeo and Juliet' that's fine for you
know maybe young

0:32:43.760,0:32:47.919
adolescence to read or even 'Midsummer
Night's Dream,' where

0:32:47.919,0:32:54.559
you've got a premise around somebody
you know in Athens. I shouldn't say

0:32:54.559,0:32:57.120
somebody
a young woman being told like you need

0:32:57.120,0:33:02.720
to marry this guy
this this is based you know this kind of

0:33:02.720,0:33:04.960
like you need to do this with a
family

0:33:04.960,0:33:12.559
this is what we've said or die
or die or go to a nunnery which they

0:33:12.559,0:33:15.919
didn't have in ancient Athens but

0:33:16.240,0:33:19.840
yeah maybe some kind of temple or some
kind of group of

0:33:19.840,0:33:24.320
yeah voiters the horror of living your
life without

0:33:24.320,0:33:29.760
a man, without a man to be attached to,
comes up over and over again in

0:33:29.760,0:33:35.200
Shakespeare and that can be turned
but that was a real thing

0:33:35.200,0:33:39.679
that was a real thing yeah and I just
think the way that people focus on

0:33:39.679,0:33:43.679
things like oh 'Midsummer Night's Dream'
we can teach that in primary schools

0:33:43.679,0:33:47.120
because it's got fairies it does and
I'm

0:33:47.120,0:33:50.240
you can as you mentioned you can edit a
Shakespeare play in

0:33:50.240,0:33:55.519
in any way that you need to to use with
young people or to use with

0:33:55.519,0:33:59.760
perhaps groups of particular beliefs or
particular preferences for whether you

0:33:59.760,0:34:03.360
have polite discourse or whether you see
Shakespeare, someone who's

0:34:03.360,0:34:07.840
messy and rude and violent and all of
those sorts of things

0:34:07.840,0:34:11.919
but yeah it does kind of just saying
'Midsummer Night's Dream is about fairies

0:34:11.919,0:34:15.440
loses
a lot of the darkness of the framing of

0:34:15.440,0:34:20.240
that play
what is it Helen and Hermia

0:34:20.240,0:34:23.919
get into an argument and one is is
short

0:34:23.919,0:34:29.679
they short shame and then tall shame
you Maypole and one is called an Ethiope

0:34:29.679,0:34:34.320
because she has browner skin
which is not not something good

0:34:34.320,0:34:37.359
and you know you go word for word that

0:34:37.359,0:34:40.720
argument of course the two men are ready
to kill each other

0:34:40.720,0:34:45.919
over a confusion and so forth the
violence is right there

0:34:45.919,0:34:52.320
and of course Hippolyta in the
is the Queen of the Amazons, she's

0:34:52.320,0:34:55.919
just been
conquered by Theseus you know, this is

0:34:55.919,0:34:59.760
war
and blood and bloodshed and and

0:34:59.760,0:35:06.000
things like that well anyhow I'm glad
that we haven't gotten there nowI will

0:35:06.000,0:35:08.320
tell you this in Japan there virtually
is no

0:35:08.320,0:35:12.960
literary education in what the Americans
call secondary school you

0:35:12.960,0:35:18.800
you speak in forums and in the UK but
you would not do a literature class

0:35:18.800,0:35:21.520
unless you're at a very special high
school

0:35:21.520,0:35:26.640
until you got to college so
that's something we're working on I'm

0:35:26.640,0:35:29.280
working on with my student now a history
of

0:35:29.280,0:35:34.240
Shakespearean education in Japan and
the difference between a lot of

0:35:34.240,0:35:38.000
students show up in my class because
Shakespeare, I don't think, I could say

0:35:38.000,0:35:40.960
it's iconic
we're writing about this where you know

0:35:40.960,0:35:46.160
the force of the Western
you know Western canon, the

0:35:46.160,0:35:51.359
largely male western canon I think all
of that is sort of dissipated

0:35:51.359,0:35:57.280
to Shakespeare being basically a brand
and my university you've been to and

0:35:57.280,0:36:02.160
we're in the middle of brand
Tokyo and so a lot of students show up

0:36:02.160,0:36:04.560
and then
they they kind of disappear after the

0:36:04.560,0:36:07.680
first class
when they know that they have to do some

0:36:07.680,0:36:12.800
work but um
that's that's kind of a challenge and i

0:36:12.800,0:36:15.359
think in your case a reverse challenge
is you're

0:36:15.359,0:36:18.960
receiving students who have been taught
this stuff all the way through and have

0:36:18.960,0:36:22.320
certain expectations
which in your training you might be

0:36:22.320,0:36:24.960
trying to shake them out of a bit
depending on

0:36:24.960,0:36:29.280
what teachers they had and what high
schools or they went to

0:36:29.280,0:36:32.640
yeah definitelyI mean one of the things
that comes up a lot in the

0:36:32.640,0:36:37.040
in the UK in universities in teaching
Shakespeare is a

0:36:37.040,0:36:40.800
it's actually really sad in some ways
that this is the case but an idea of

0:36:40.800,0:36:47.440
unlearning so getting students
to forget maybe some of the more

0:36:47.440,0:36:51.839
bite-sized
ways of thinking about Shakespeare that

0:36:51.839,0:36:55.440
they've been given at school
because of the need for them to pass

0:36:55.440,0:37:00.400
high stakes
tests and they're I'm trying to think

0:37:00.400,0:37:03.680
really maybe when you're about 14 and
then again

0:37:03.680,0:37:09.119
about maybe 16 17 years old that kind of
thing in the UK

0:37:09.119,0:37:16.240
and it yeah to maybe reduce some of that
uh reductive kind of snapshot thinking

0:37:16.240,0:37:21.440
about plays or about the poems and to
encourage them to come with a fresh eye

0:37:21.440,0:37:26.240
encourage them to connect it to
things that are happening in the year

0:37:26.240,0:37:29.760
that they're studying this particular
play even

0:37:29.760,0:37:33.599
so I think that's one of the things we
have to try and do a little

0:37:33.599,0:37:36.000
at least here the other thing I suppose

0:37:36.000,0:37:39.440
is that
0:37:36.640,0:37:41.200mI mean my classes even in the 10

0:37:39.440,0:37:44.320
years that I've been at York
are increasingly a mix of international

0:37:44.320,0:37:51.040
and UK or EU
students and so actually that's

0:37:51.040,0:37:55.599
maybe the greatest challenge of all is
to teach some students who've had

0:37:55.599,0:37:59.119
increasing amounts of Shakespearean, the
UK government

0:37:59.119,0:38:03.599
certainly for the students that would
be coming to class now

0:38:03.599,0:38:09.200
has mandated like four Shakespeare plays
and actually sometimes that's just

0:38:09.200,0:38:12.720
transpired to the same
couple of Shakespeare plays taught

0:38:12.720,0:38:16.160
multiple times
so you get students who are somewhat

0:38:16.160,0:38:21.680
knowledgeable about Shakespeare, but also
jaded and board of Shakespeare and kind

0:38:21.680,0:38:24.000
of wondering why they have to keep doing
this

0:38:24.000,0:38:27.920
and you've got that alongside students
who may have very little

0:38:27.920,0:38:32.720
knowledge of Shakespeare other than
maybe a couple of popular films or

0:38:32.720,0:38:38.480
maybe references in popular culture and
don't know very much in terms of things

0:38:38.480,0:38:41.760
like iambic pentameter you mentioned
before

0:38:41.760,0:38:45.520
or for example a student recently was
asking me well

0:38:45.520,0:38:49.839
why is this text faced out on the page
like it is why are there

0:38:49.839,0:38:54.320
so many gaps on the page this isn't like
a novel thatI would pick up

0:38:54.320,0:38:57.280
and we're saying I don't know very much
about drama can you point me in the

0:38:57.280,0:39:00.160
direction of a couple of introductory
texts

0:39:00.160,0:39:06.000
about how drama works so we got into
discussions about lineation and about

0:39:06.000,0:39:10.320
verse
as opposed to prose andI think one of

0:39:10.320,0:39:13.839
the really interesting challenges in
that very mixed classroom is you've got

0:39:13.839,0:39:17.680
to be able to speak
to both of those students and to not

0:39:17.680,0:39:20.640
kind of assume
too much but also to find ways to

0:39:20.640,0:39:23.359
stretch your students that have been
doing Shakespeare

0:39:23.359,0:39:30.400
day in day out at school
that's an interesting word stretch to

0:39:30.400,0:39:34.240
stretch it out to take it out of a kind
of codified

0:39:34.240,0:39:38.480
highly institutionalized testing
system

0:39:38.480,0:39:42.240
that is nationalized and that people you
know do or die

0:39:42.240,0:39:46.480
these situations that people have to
go through when they're quite young

0:39:46.480,0:39:51.520
and it's not quite that way in the
states it is very much that way in Japan

0:39:51.520,0:39:58.720
very similar to and
it it that's that's a challenge that

0:39:58.720,0:40:03.440
really is a challenge
to move people from the

0:40:03.440,0:40:08.720
uhI can't tell this show
no you know no jokes that come to mind

0:40:08.720,0:40:13.040
are appropriate for
a general audience but there's

0:40:13.040,0:40:18.560
there's an old joke about the car, Jaguar
right I love I use to,

0:40:18.560,0:40:20.960
to I had an
old well we could talk about that as

0:40:20.960,0:40:26.240
well oh yeah well I had a 77
Jag with that you know the bonnet that

0:40:26.240,0:40:29.839
curves with that
yep yep there was it was delightful

0:40:29.839,0:40:34.160
that I got for some
seven thousand American dollars and it

0:40:34.160,0:40:37.920
broke down every other
week but it was when it ran it was such

0:40:37.920,0:40:41.280
a joy
but anyway the newer ones were very

0:40:41.280,0:40:46.720
expensive and we're talking about
people how much we loved the car

0:40:46.720,0:40:52.560
but how much we disliked the owner the
the people who drove Jaguars were such

0:40:52.560,0:40:55.359
uh jerks
they were usually these men who were

0:40:55.359,0:40:58.640
kind of you know
in these professions who thought a

0:40:58.640,0:41:01.920
little bit more than of themselves and
perhaps was necessary

0:41:01.920,0:41:05.280
but in Shakespeare there is
Shakespeare and then there's the

0:41:05.280,0:41:10.640
reception of Shakespeare
the image of Shakespeare and I'm

0:41:10.640,0:41:13.280
gonna make a list of things because I'm
doing several you know

0:41:13.280,0:41:17.440
I'm doing a series here and I don't want
to repeat myself but I did take a friend

0:41:17.440,0:41:21.040
out to play golf
a few years back with a couple of my

0:41:21.040,0:41:25.280
friends from
a local university and he

0:41:25.280,0:41:29.599
was my friend who was not a professor
was likeI  don't want to go

0:41:29.599,0:41:34.319
i don't want to play golf with three
English professors

0:41:34.319,0:41:37.359
We got there and we played a little
round and got off he goes

0:41:37.359,0:41:40.960
those guys were really normal they were
like normal people

0:41:40.960,0:41:45.200
I said yeah and that's one of the things
that's provoked me

0:41:45.200,0:41:48.560
into doing this is this so people can
see that we're not

0:41:48.560,0:41:55.440
we're not we're not the way people
think we we are, not the Jaguar drivers no

0:41:55.440,0:41:59.760
we're not the jerks we're not the smug
people we've in many cases had to

0:41:59.760,0:42:03.200
struggle to get into the jobs that we've
had we're very fortunate

0:42:03.200,0:42:07.280
to be where we are and very happy
with it

0:42:07.280,0:42:12.240
uh and to and a lot of our effort in
teaching is to try to remove Shakespeare

0:42:12.240,0:42:17.680
from that
long history of being

0:42:17.680,0:42:25.599
this class a kind of class attachment
that really is very unfair to

0:42:25.599,0:42:29.440
Shakespeare and unfair to
people who could otherwise enjoyI think

0:42:29.440,0:42:34.160
many people have figured it out
but that seems to be kind of up front in

0:42:34.160,0:42:38.960
the torch that we're carrying to
to as you what did you say just stretch

0:42:38.960,0:42:42.960
it stretch it
because there's something in there for

0:42:42.960,0:42:47.040
everybody it was written
most of these things were written to be

0:42:47.040,0:42:49.680
what 'Midsummer Night's Dream' could be
played at court

0:42:49.680,0:42:52.800
but you could run it right through the
theaters andI think they--

0:42:52.800,0:42:57.359
I can show that they did before they
played it at court rehearse it

0:42:57.359,0:43:01.040
get some audience response and then play
it for the queen and her

0:43:01.040,0:43:05.599
her friends well, Andy Murphy has got
this

0:43:05.599,0:43:08.720
really interesting book called working
class Shakespeare's

0:43:08.720,0:43:13.839
and it is well it makes
it's interesting we're talking about

0:43:13.839,0:43:16.640
being professors and trying to make it
accessible his

0:43:16.640,0:43:20.640
thesis is actually that at least in the
UK

0:43:20.640,0:43:25.040
working-class people will tend to have
like complete works of Shakespeare on

0:43:25.040,0:43:28.319
their
bookshelf and they would read it and

0:43:28.319,0:43:31.839
you know
like kind of an evening sit by the big

0:43:31.839,0:43:34.319
fire
and with the candlelight and and kind of

0:43:34.319,0:43:39.359
be interested in it and it was
kind of in and of itself popular

0:43:39.359,0:43:42.560
and he kind of locates a turn away from
that

0:43:42.560,0:43:49.599
with subject English growing in schools
and kind of the early chairs of sorry

0:43:49.599,0:43:54.319
professors
of English emerging in say oxford

0:43:54.319,0:44:01.119
and Cambridge in the late 1800s
and that sadly that had this effect of

0:44:01.119,0:44:04.880
people going
oh this is something you have to study

0:44:04.880,0:44:08.079
like physics or like chemistry or like
maths

0:44:08.079,0:44:11.359
this isn't something you can pick up for
yourself

0:44:11.359,0:44:15.040
and you won't be able to access the
meaning of it

0:44:15.040,0:44:19.760
for yourself and this it's it's so sad
to me that this growth of subject

0:44:19.760,0:44:22.160
English which is obviously my very
favorite

0:44:22.160,0:44:26.720
subject that it's been my favorite
subject since I was,

0:44:26.720,0:44:30.400
I don't know, probably since I started
studying anything at primary school and

0:44:30.400,0:44:32.960
definitely all the way through high
school

0:44:32.960,0:44:37.200
that that may have made people feel oh I
can't do this

0:44:37.200,0:44:41.839
I'm not an English major, I'm not an
English specialist

0:44:41.839,0:44:46.319
I've been not touched this yeah
you're not one of those people

0:44:46.319,0:44:49.680
on that side of the classroom or you
know in that group

0:44:49.680,0:44:53.520
in in the when you break from classes
and

0:44:53.520,0:44:56.960
people have little groups of friends and
I'm not part of that coffee club I'm

0:44:56.960,0:45:01.599
part of another wellI mean there's a
famous example of William Hazlett in the

0:45:01.599,0:45:05.280
early 19th century in the surrey
lectures and giving lectures to

0:45:05.280,0:45:09.280
working class people after work and coal
miners after work would go here and

0:45:09.280,0:45:12.880
to talk about Shakespeare and or Edward
Dowden

0:45:12.880,0:45:17.520
speaking at Trinity College and people
lining up down the streets and holding

0:45:17.520,0:45:20.720
each other up trying to hear from inside
the window until

0:45:20.720,0:45:25.680
it was very public and very the
origin was in the mechanics

0:45:25.680,0:45:30.079
schools and yeah where you know
Oxford and Cambridge didn't want

0:45:30.079,0:45:32.079
anything to do with Shakespeare you can
just

0:45:32.079,0:45:36.160
read that stuff we do Latin you know
what is it

0:45:36.160,0:45:39.839
the old entrance exam to Oxford was
what's the joke

0:45:39.839,0:45:45.680
who who dragged whom around what city
how many times and if you can answer

0:45:45.680,0:45:48.720
that question you gotta
write something like that but you know

0:45:48.720,0:45:51.920
it was a class distinction of course the
public schools in English

0:45:51.920,0:45:55.440
in England which would be private in
the United Atates but

0:45:55.440,0:46:00.560
that's you were taught that and there
was a resistance to teaching that wasn't

0:46:00.560,0:46:04.319
there
and I think I can determine that

0:46:04.319,0:46:07.920
Shakespeare was taught at the university
of Tokyo and at Harvard

0:46:07.920,0:46:12.079
before Shakespeare was taught at Oxford
of Cambridge

0:46:12.079,0:46:18.160
because the reception but then it became
then it became a class thing I mean

0:46:18.160,0:46:22.480
you how many people went to college in
1910

0:46:22.480,0:46:26.960
you know so you go to Harvard you study
under Henry Hudson

0:46:26.960,0:46:30.640
Shakespeare wonderful teacher I've read
his work he would have been a fabulous

0:46:30.640,0:46:33.760
guy
to learn from but then it becomes a

0:46:33.760,0:46:39.280
connection you know who dragged whom
in Shakespeare yeah and not just class I

0:46:39.280,0:46:44.160
mean also that thing about
0:46:40.720,0:46:46.400it being a suitable subject for

0:46:44.160,0:46:47.200
yeah mechanics it's kind of nice to
teach them

0:46:47.200,0:46:51.839
to have basic literacy through doing
some Shakespeare after they've finished

0:46:51.839,0:46:54.720
their
shift down the coal mine and also women

0:46:54.720,0:46:58.160
that it was suitable for women
because they maybe hadn't learned latin

0:46:58.160,0:47:01.440
unless you were
you know extremely well-off and had

0:47:01.440,0:47:04.640
quite a maybe
liberal father who would allow you to

0:47:04.640,0:47:09.440
have a tutor in your country house so
the idea that it's suitable for women

0:47:09.440,0:47:12.880
and also suitable
for there are certainly a lot of

0:47:12.880,0:47:17.280
books about how
it comes into English language teaching

0:47:17.280,0:47:20.720
because it's considered
well you know you're not going to start

0:47:20.720,0:47:25.839
people off on
on Latin or Greek you know or even

0:47:25.839,0:47:32.800
maybe I don't know metamorphosis
oh my email is just untimely

0:47:32.800,0:47:37.520
popped up there I'm gonna close that
down

0:47:37.520,0:47:42.240
yeah that it's suitable for getting
people into language learning and that

0:47:42.240,0:47:47.760
it's suitable for a sort of
maybe an assimilatory purpose of kind

0:47:47.760,0:47:53.200
of assimilating
folk to particular ways of thinking or

0:47:53.200,0:47:57.760
particular ideas or particular character
types that you might find elsewhere in

0:47:57.760,0:48:01.680
literature
so it ends up being

0:48:01.680,0:48:06.319
kind of this thing that you can teach to
anyone who is other

0:48:06.319,0:48:09.839
in any way if you're basically not a
young

0:48:09.839,0:48:13.200
white wealthy man or oxbridge
Shakespeare is for you

0:48:13.200,0:48:18.319
which is in some ways kind of cool now I
think you could kind of reappropriate

0:48:18.319,0:48:21.359
that and be like
how limited were they to not want to

0:48:21.359,0:48:26.640
engage with Shakespeare
and how how great for for us that we got

0:48:26.640,0:48:30.640
Shakespeare
yeah now that brings us to the the big

0:48:30.640,0:48:34.079
question for
everybody is turning points turning

0:48:34.079,0:48:37.200
points
and you sort of suggest you pretty much

0:48:37.200,0:48:40.319
were
you you were already there that maybe

0:48:40.319,0:48:45.599
that but there is
a risk to to go into this

0:48:45.599,0:48:49.839
and you know with so much talk lately
there's been a lot of talk about

0:48:49.839,0:48:53.839
STEM or nothing else right the STEM
fields but that's been the way

0:48:53.839,0:48:58.160
all through my life you know you come
home from college

0:48:58.160,0:49:02.079
and Uncle Billy a real Uncle Billy said
well what are you studying

0:49:02.079,0:49:05.599
in college and I'm saying well I'm
studying Shakespeare what kind of job do

0:49:05.599,0:49:09.119
you want to do with that?
You know in from the American south

0:49:09.119,0:49:11.760
right but I think everybody's
experienced this

0:49:11.760,0:49:15.440
you really do have to turn against a
certain certain tide,

0:49:15.440,0:49:19.760
so tell us about that what well that's a
good one because I have got a tide that

0:49:19.760,0:49:24.000
i had to turn against
so I mean I was always interested in

0:49:24.000,0:49:27.040
reading
literature and I did read some

0:49:27.040,0:49:30.319
Shakespeare, but it's
you know I also enjoyed many other

0:49:30.319,0:49:35.440
things equally
sometimes more I would say I used to

0:49:35.440,0:49:39.680
do funny little things like
i would sit on my own I didn't really

0:49:39.680,0:49:43.440
know what I was doing but I think I was
doing dramaturgy. I would like mark up

0:49:43.440,0:49:48.640
my complete works
with kind of bits thatI would use in

0:49:48.640,0:49:52.559
a cut down version of Midsummer Night's
Dream. I would take this little chalk

0:49:52.559,0:49:57.680
crayon thing that I had and kind of
I was never doing it, I was never staging

0:49:57.680,0:50:00.559
it but I was just like if I was gonna
stage this

0:50:00.559,0:50:04.720
we'd keep this bit and lose this bit
and i'd swap this line to somebody

0:50:04.720,0:50:08.160
like I had no idea what I was doing but
I had a lot of fun

0:50:08.160,0:50:12.160
what what age what age is young Sarah
right now oh

0:50:12.160,0:50:18.720
I think maybe about 11 or 12 wow
wow you were one of those at 11 or 12.

0:50:18.720,0:50:23.359
you know that's a good age though
that's a good age, there's an opening in

0:50:23.359,0:50:26.480
there
in my memory where that sort of closed

0:50:26.480,0:50:30.160
off
when puberty hit in my case because

0:50:30.160,0:50:32.960
then you have to worry about social
things and

0:50:32.960,0:50:36.240
being nervous about you know the way
your body's changing and that sort of

0:50:36.240,0:50:39.440
thing but
there was this clarity in those in those

0:50:39.440,0:50:43.119
years where
it seemed that anything was possible and

0:50:43.119,0:50:46.319
it seems like you
you were a fairly gifted child thinking

0:50:46.319,0:50:52.160
about how you might change
something and stage something

0:50:52.160,0:50:58.160
that way I mean yeah I didn't go to the
theater heaps I'm not entirely sure how

0:50:58.160,0:51:01.200
I came up with this I don't know maybe I
just have an innate

0:51:01.200,0:51:05.200
enjoyment of controlling a situation and
I was like let's imagine that I'm in

0:51:05.200,0:51:09.280
control of this
kind of group of players. I think

0:51:09.280,0:51:12.319
it also helped that I mean we've talked
about gender a bit

0:51:12.319,0:51:17.280
and I only went to single sex
education until

0:51:17.280,0:51:22.720
I was till university really
there were some boys at primary school

0:51:22.720,0:51:26.400
at various stage
maybe up till about age 11 in the UK

0:51:26.400,0:51:30.880
that kind of thing but
I think that helped a lot because you

0:51:30.880,0:51:37.520
had female teachers who were
have chemistry doctorates and

0:51:37.520,0:51:40.880
it was hard to see an idea that women
couldn't do things when the people

0:51:40.880,0:51:44.079
teaching you were all women who had done
things and you had

0:51:44.079,0:51:48.000
heads of school you have principals
who are

0:51:48.000,0:51:52.319
fantastic women with MBAs and
everything else so

0:51:52.319,0:51:58.720
that was very liberating I would say
liberating yes and all it's a liberating

0:51:58.720,0:52:02.079
experience to be
and I've heard that from

0:52:02.079,0:52:06.960
African-American or
black friends of mine who

0:52:06.960,0:52:09.520
basically
African-American in America who have

0:52:09.520,0:52:15.359
gone to historically black
colleges so HBCs which

0:52:15.359,0:52:19.359
were out there for the wrong reasons the
Jim Crow reasons, well, we'll give you a

0:52:19.359,0:52:22.000
college education but you got to go to
your college

0:52:22.000,0:52:25.200
but they they've continued and in many
cases strived

0:52:25.200,0:52:29.680
because of I think that's what you're
talking about a sense of

0:52:29.680,0:52:35.200
we are on campus and and gaining a good
foundation

0:52:35.200,0:52:41.760
identity foundation
outside of the mixed world

0:52:41.760,0:52:47.200
that may be more adaptable would you say
definitelyI think it's that

0:52:47.200,0:52:51.760
thing about I just
I'm probably quite late to partly

0:52:51.760,0:52:55.280
because you don't
you're not so self-conscious of your you

0:52:55.280,0:52:59.119
also have conscious of your body but not
necessarily in relation to the opposite

0:52:59.119,0:53:02.880
sex you might be kind of worried like
oh I've got some spots today I'm going

0:53:02.880,0:53:04.960
to clean those up beforeI go into
classes

0:53:04.960,0:53:08.640
but you're not kind of worried that i
have spots there for that makes me

0:53:08.640,0:53:14.160
less of a person or less desirable or
those sorts of things so I think it was

0:53:14.160,0:53:19.200
helpful in that way and also just that
the women around you were the role

0:53:19.200,0:53:22.400
models and it
never occurred to me that women might

0:53:22.400,0:53:27.839
not be able to do something because
women at my school had almost all the

0:53:27.839,0:53:31.040
roles there were maybe a couple of STEM
subjects like IT

0:53:31.040,0:53:34.800
at first for example where we had like
male teachers

0:53:34.800,0:53:39.440
um but it kind of just didn't end to my
head just because of the environment

0:53:39.440,0:53:42.319
you're in
that that there might be a glass ceiling

0:53:42.319,0:53:46.160
or
something like that yeah so well you

0:53:46.160,0:53:49.280
started
now I i think we talked about this

0:53:49.280,0:53:53.760
when you were in Tokyo
you started you were born in UK and I

0:53:53.760,0:53:57.760
think it's your
during your adolescent years you were

0:53:57.760,0:54:02.559
maybe your family moved to
Australia and so and Adelaide right is

0:54:02.559,0:54:05.839
that
and so I don't want to get too personal

0:54:05.839,0:54:08.640
if you don't want to but
you were pretty freely talking about

0:54:08.640,0:54:14.559
this so in Adelaide which I
view as this kind of happy

0:54:14.559,0:54:18.960
town that you know good economy a lot of
really nice people

0:54:18.960,0:54:24.720
and nice places to go and nice houses
that's howI see Adelaide sort of a bit

0:54:24.720,0:54:27.920
of a
dreamy world like the American Midwest

0:54:27.920,0:54:31.119
may have been at one point
we're seeing so many horrible images

0:54:31.119,0:54:36.799
from the American Midwest recently but
that's where you went to high

0:54:36.799,0:54:40.720
school
and did you do

0:54:40.720,0:54:47.440
the like A and O level type testing
there too was it modeled on the UK? Or

0:54:47.440,0:54:53.920
I wonder if we're a bit closer to the US
in Australia at least when I was

0:54:53.920,0:54:56.640
there because as
this has now changed and they do now

0:54:56.640,0:55:00.400
have a Federal or a national education
system

0:55:00.400,0:55:06.000
but when I arrived you know a similar
thing geographic distances you have

0:55:06.000,0:55:09.440
states I think five states and two
territories

0:55:09.440,0:55:12.160
hopefully I'm getting this right
otherwise I might get my Australian

0:55:12.160,0:55:15.839
citizenship revoked
but they were in charge of their own

0:55:15.839,0:55:19.599
education and you had
so I have a qualification that's a

0:55:19.599,0:55:24.640
South Australian
qualification for my year 12 year 13 so

0:55:24.640,0:55:29.200
when I was 17, 18
and the States each determined that

0:55:29.200,0:55:31.760
because
you know when these educational

0:55:31.760,0:55:36.640
certificates evolved it would have been
so difficult to exchange who was doing

0:55:36.640,0:55:40.799
what between the states and
to exchange resources and materials

0:55:40.799,0:55:44.160
right
and to even do the the processes of

0:55:44.160,0:55:47.040
certification and marking you know
you're not able to just

0:55:47.040,0:55:54.240
shoot an email off to Canberra about
scaling the marks something like that so

0:55:54.240,0:56:00.160
so we actually
I also think and more similar to the

0:56:00.160,0:56:05.680
American tradition in
Australia in that you had a broader

0:56:05.680,0:56:09.760
range of subjects at year 12
than British people usually British

0:56:09.760,0:56:13.280
people narrowed down to about three
subjects by the time they're finishing

0:56:13.280,0:56:16.079
school
we had to take five subjects in our

0:56:16.079,0:56:21.359
final year so that did allow me
to keep some of that broader

0:56:21.359,0:56:25.200
that more liberal education, so I took
economics and biology

0:56:25.200,0:56:30.319
alongside English and French and History
and that carries through into university

0:56:30.319,0:56:34.079
education as well I mean it may be
changing now in Australia. It's

0:56:34.079,0:56:37.920
almost 20 years since I finished my
school education

0:56:37.920,0:56:44.240
but my degree was not an English
degree as it would be if I studied in

0:56:44.240,0:56:49.200
the UK I would have read
Medieval and Renaissance, in 18th century

0:56:49.200,0:56:53.680
and 19th century,
and modern literature but in Australia I

0:56:53.680,0:56:56.839
was doing
some law subjects. I was doing

0:56:56.839,0:57:02.240
jurisprudence I was doing
politics alongside

0:57:02.240,0:57:07.520
English and French and History again, I
somehow kept very close to my

0:57:07.520,0:57:10.559
school subjects when I went through
university and now I'm kind of kicking

0:57:10.559,0:57:14.079
myself and saying why didn't you do
Anthropology why didn't you do Classics

0:57:14.079,0:57:18.880
you could have really
expanded well there can't be four or

0:57:18.880,0:57:23.280
five six Sarahs
I have a younger brother who specialized

0:57:23.280,0:57:26.799
in Accounting and he was
the best in the whole world at

0:57:26.799,0:57:31.599
everything, he went to law school
and he's made you know he very

0:57:31.599,0:57:34.799
rightfully
been extremely good in his job and has

0:57:34.799,0:57:38.559
done extremely well
and he knows a lot about stocks and I

0:57:38.559,0:57:41.920
remember 20 years ago
that we were talking and having a

0:57:41.920,0:57:44.319
beer, we're home for Christmas or
something and

0:57:44.319,0:57:47.680
i said listen tell me something about
the stock market, I don't know

0:57:47.680,0:57:50.960
he said that's boring I want to talk
about Ernest Hemingway

0:57:50.960,0:57:54.480
I just read in Hemingway now and he
felt

0:57:54.480,0:58:00.720
like he should have done more in you
know he was sort of jealous of me

0:58:01.359,0:58:05.359
right now I'm struggling to keep and
find a job you know at the same time

0:58:05.359,0:58:09.520
and nothing to be jealous of I think we
all feel that way a little bit like

0:58:09.520,0:58:13.920
there's something that we
you know in another life perhaps

0:58:13.920,0:58:18.480
we could have done absolutely and well
yeah I meanI think mine would have had

0:58:18.480,0:58:21.280
to involve reading the literature at
some point but

0:58:21.280,0:58:24.720
I mean it's interesting you mentioned
those kind of economic concerns that

0:58:24.720,0:58:27.839
start creeping in
and the English that I was doing at

0:58:27.839,0:58:32.960
university I did narrow down
first I kind of did Nedieval early

0:58:32.960,0:58:38.400
modern Renaissance
and Victorian women's writing largely

0:58:38.400,0:58:42.960
and then I love the Medieval and I
nearly became a Medievalist there's a

0:58:42.960,0:58:48.160
fantastic
Professor at Adelaide, Tom Burton, who

0:58:48.160,0:58:51.520
just made things like semantic change so
fun

0:58:51.520,0:58:55.520
and he taught us things like siddrak and
bokos I can't imagine putting sidrakum

0:58:55.520,0:59:00.000
bacchus on a
university curriculum really at the

0:59:00.000,0:59:02.960
moment
it's so specific and you need to do

0:59:02.960,0:59:05.680
so much work in terms of the language
it's

0:59:05.680,0:59:08.880
you know I'm sure that many of the
students watching this

0:59:08.880,0:59:12.559
think Shakespeare sounds like some kind
of Martian language

0:59:12.559,0:59:17.200
some thing from another planet, Medieval
English

0:59:17.200,0:59:22.799
and I know you've got like folks like
Ben Crystal involved as well who are

0:59:22.799,0:59:27.760
such experts on when
you know things change and vowel shifts

0:59:27.760,0:59:32.240
and all those sorts of things
but it fascinated me and I wanted to

0:59:32.240,0:59:36.799
work on things like early modern elegy
for a long time female elegy

0:59:36.799,0:59:42.960
yes was something I wrote on in my
third year and thenI was trying to come

0:59:42.960,0:59:47.359
back to the UK to do a Masters and I was
trying to get funding to do it

0:59:47.359,0:59:50.640
and I very quickly discovered that
people don't

0:59:50.640,0:59:54.480
particularly want to give you funding at
least in Australia as well where there's

0:59:54.480,0:59:58.079
partly a bias towards stem subjects
that's been

0:59:58.079,1:00:03.119
actually much longer held than perhaps
what's emerging in the UK now and it

1:00:03.119,1:00:08.160
could be related to
engineering in Australia and mining and

1:00:08.160,1:00:13.920
those sorts of things
but there was kind of pressure to

1:00:13.920,1:00:17.040
like well
what are you going to do that's going to

1:00:17.040,1:00:21.119
change people's lives or
how is that going to be useful it's that

1:00:21.119,1:00:25.200
question about application right that
you get how is this useful how will this

1:00:25.200,1:00:28.319
help
anyone and that's where I started to

1:00:28.319,1:00:32.319
develop a specialism in Shakespearean
education because if you can say things

1:00:32.319,1:00:36.559
like
well so many children across the world

1:00:36.559,1:00:40.799
so many young people at universities
have to study Shakespeare

1:00:40.799,1:00:44.000
what are the best ways we can do that or
what are the resources

1:00:44.000,1:00:49.040
for them to study Shakespeare and people
start to say oh you can have money for

1:00:49.040,1:00:53.200
that
you want to improve their education

1:00:53.200,1:00:57.040
education the big

1:00:57.760,1:01:02.480
it could be STEM hyphen e
if you just can't do any of these other

1:01:02.480,1:01:07.359
things well we do have this
enormous amount of national funding and

1:01:07.359,1:01:10.720
initiatives and this and that were
trying to get everybody

1:01:10.720,1:01:14.319
educated in general so that was a very
good move

1:01:14.319,1:01:20.799
that was very good and
iI slipped into education at certain

1:01:20.799,1:01:23.440
points
basically for survival but also because

1:01:23.440,1:01:27.280
I was very interested
in the history of education but also

1:01:27.280,1:01:31.520
Medieval
i can name three guys who taught me

1:01:31.520,1:01:35.920
medieval and they were
superb all of them were so engaging in

1:01:35.920,1:01:39.040
class
and right now in my faculty

1:01:39.040,1:01:41.680
unfortunately we just we don't have a
medievalist

1:01:41.680,1:01:48.079
uhand she retired
and so I'm hoping before I retire

1:01:48.079,1:01:52.079
that we can maybe get one
uit's so engaging but it's so

1:01:52.079,1:01:56.319
challenging even for
native speakers that

1:01:56.319,1:02:01.760
it's hard yeah, I mean something like
the Gawain and the Green Knight we

1:02:01.760,1:02:08.240
studied at university and I loved it
but then actually I equally love I think

1:02:08.240,1:02:12.000
equally
things like Simon Armitage rewriting

1:02:12.000,1:02:16.799
that in an English that is
it's probably still pretty challenging

1:02:16.799,1:02:20.480
especially if you're just coming to
English as a language and particularly

1:02:20.480,1:02:24.720
to literary English
and he does because he's from I think up

1:02:24.720,1:02:29.440
north from Yorkshire somewhere like that
it's full of it kind of keeps a flavor

1:02:29.440,1:02:33.200
of dialects but
I do love looking at things like Sheamus

1:02:33.200,1:02:38.640
Heaney rewriting
Beowulf as well maybe those are the ways

1:02:38.640,1:02:41.280
to
access it you can then maybe that then

1:02:41.280,1:02:44.079
encourages you to dip into the original
and to

1:02:44.079,1:02:47.680
to do battle with all of that language
but

1:02:47.680,1:02:51.680
they're wrecking stories you know if you
like Game of Thrones like

1:02:51.680,1:02:55.039
and I was thinking Game of Thrones
yeah

1:02:55.039,1:03:01.599
you know talking about stretching
if you go for those sub those those

1:03:01.599,1:03:05.920
what deep structural elements of
Medieval literature

1:03:05.920,1:03:09.599
you got yourself a hit and I'm sure
Tolkien come on

1:03:09.599,1:03:15.039
you know this this is he was he was such
a linguist there's such a

1:03:15.039,1:03:20.240
polygot that
you know you you go into that deep

1:03:20.240,1:03:24.559
structure you do get into the
things that are just what eternally

1:03:24.559,1:03:28.400
entertaining
and meaningful at the same time yeah and

1:03:28.400,1:03:33.119
these big battles of good
versus evil are so much what

1:03:33.119,1:03:36.400
you know some of those poems some of
those

1:03:36.400,1:03:39.920
early writings are about and they play
out of course in

1:03:39.920,1:03:43.280
you know things like Harry Potter too
not just

1:03:43.280,1:03:47.760
you know we can argue that maybe Tolkien
does it miles better linguistically

1:03:47.760,1:03:54.319
but there's big kind of
struggles and actually one of my

1:03:54.319,1:03:57.839
students
uwrote on Game of Thrones. I teach a

1:03:57.839,1:04:03.359
module on drama and education
and she took the first text that we

1:04:03.359,1:04:06.720
studied
that I opened the module with is tis

1:04:06.720,1:04:10.240
pity
John Ford and people will talk about

1:04:10.240,1:04:14.400
it as a kind of
dark rewriting of 'Romeo and Juliet'

1:04:14.400,1:04:17.200
taking
Shakespeare's themes of forbidden love

1:04:17.200,1:04:21.119
between young adolescents and it
turns out that there's an incestuous

1:04:21.119,1:04:24.720
sibling relationship
there but she paired that with Game of

1:04:24.720,1:04:30.079
Thrones and wrote a
terrific essay about it it works

1:04:30.079,1:04:35.680
uh who is it Lisa Hopkins I believe
written a bit on that and

1:04:35.680,1:04:39.599
i have a student it's amazing how much
overlap we have going I have a student

1:04:39.599,1:04:42.880
who walked in
starting this term unfortunately she

1:04:42.880,1:04:47.039
couldn't we couldn't meet face-to-face
and she saysI  just finished I want to

1:04:47.039,1:04:51.520
do John Ford
Tis Pity and I said well you know

1:04:51.520,1:04:53.920
your
your boomer professor is going to have

1:04:53.920,1:04:59.680
to go back 30 years and and re-read that
and I just finished it and it is

1:04:59.680,1:05:07.839
and she's going to work on
marriage and the law

1:05:07.839,1:05:13.839
law at that time and has worked up some
very she's seen some and it's gotten me

1:05:13.839,1:05:18.720
thinking about it
what women broke the law

1:05:18.720,1:05:22.720
right and when you look at the law of
course you have two laws you have

1:05:22.720,1:05:26.559
Law of the church of England, the
reformed church

1:05:26.559,1:05:29.680
and you have the Council at Trent which
would be over

1:05:29.680,1:05:34.000
In Verona in Romeo and Juliet any
Italian-based place so you have that

1:05:34.000,1:05:37.599
confusion
and then you have audience reception so

1:05:37.599,1:05:43.119
'Romeo and Juliet' it turns out
they get married, so 'Romeo and Juliet' it

1:05:43.119,1:05:46.720
turns out
they get married so when they consummate

1:05:46.720,1:05:50.000
the
it's all legal except there were that I

1:05:50.000,1:05:54.160
can I can see no witnesses
and you had to have witnesses you had to

1:05:54.160,1:05:57.760
have two according to the catholic
church and the reformed

1:05:57.760,1:06:03.839
Church of England there's no one to
witness it so she may have broken the

1:06:03.839,1:06:11.039
and that's that's just as bad as the
adultery in tis pity it is adultery

1:06:11.039,1:06:17.680
now it's incest but so you can add that
but and she breaks the law of course

1:06:17.680,1:06:20.799
when she murders
when she commits suicide you can't kill

1:06:20.799,1:06:25.599
yourself
that's homicide so Juliet is a law

1:06:25.599,1:06:28.480
breaker
it turns out and Ford I think you know

1:06:28.480,1:06:33.760
when you look at it that way
we have sympathy for what Annabella in

1:06:33.760,1:06:37.200
that
play for some reason

1:06:37.200,1:06:41.520
and it is tis pity it's a pity that she
falls in love with

1:06:41.520,1:06:44.640
someone she can't fall in love with but
he does seem to be

1:06:44.640,1:06:47.760
so you start going through
Shakespearean characters I'll try to

1:06:47.760,1:06:51.760
finish this very quickly
and you look at what Sesdemona all right

1:06:51.760,1:06:55.440
guess what
eloping is not against the law

1:06:55.440,1:07:00.000
you can go against the will of your
father and there is early feminism it

1:07:00.000,1:07:05.680
takes a couple of centuries to
begin to because there's no democracy

1:07:05.680,1:07:10.160
but there is that that great shift from
Medieval to

1:07:10.160,1:07:14.000
early modern where you know there's sort
of an

1:07:14.000,1:07:17.760
even among a largely male audience
sympathy for the woman

1:07:17.760,1:07:22.559
to marry someone she loves rather than
the person her father tells her

1:07:22.559,1:07:25.839
of course men were men were also told
who the married but

1:07:25.839,1:07:29.680
of course men had freedom to run
around

1:07:29.680,1:07:32.720
much more than of course women who would
be just

1:07:32.720,1:07:37.359
horrible horrible treatment destiny
doesn't break the law she doesn't kill

1:07:37.359,1:07:42.000
herself she doesn't do anything
you mentioned Emelia though she's well

1:07:42.000,1:07:46.799
you mentioned Othello and Emelia is one
of my favorite characters

1:07:46.799,1:07:50.960
there at the end and I'm not sure this
totally connects to rule breaking

1:07:50.960,1:07:55.119
althoughI can see that
i don't want to put too many pot

1:07:55.119,1:07:58.640
spoilers in there but I had things not
panned out the way they do

1:07:58.640,1:08:01.839
i feel like she's the kind of woman that
you know that thing about women not

1:08:01.839,1:08:05.599
being able to testify against husbands
and material like that

1:08:05.599,1:08:10.000
she is there saying yes it's giving
testimony

1:08:10.000,1:08:14.799
and I'm declaring this and this is this
is how it happened it did not happen in

1:08:14.799,1:08:18.319
this way it wouldn't have happened if
you hadn't been winding everybody up

1:08:18.319,1:08:23.279
and interfering and actually um
i know one of the things that you're

1:08:23.279,1:08:26.560
interested in is like what digital
resources are available

1:08:26.560,1:08:31.279
and there's a recent women in
Shakespeare podcast run by Dr

1:08:31.279,1:08:35.359
Varsha Panjwani who works for NYU in
London

1:08:35.359,1:08:39.279
and she's recently had Janet Susman
talking about

1:08:39.279,1:08:43.440
how much she loves that character Emilia
how much she enjoyed

1:08:43.440,1:08:46.799
playing Emelia and just to recommend
that

1:08:46.799,1:08:52.159
any of your students that are interested
in feminist Shakespeare's

1:08:52.159,1:08:56.640
it's free to airI think if you just
take your favorite search engine and put

1:08:56.640,1:09:00.640
in women in Shakespeare podcast
your students will find it we'll

1:09:00.640,1:09:04.719
catch it and of course we're
recording so we can pick it up and I

1:09:04.719,1:09:08.960
have
four five students we did

1:09:08.960,1:09:15.279
that we did Othello and
iI looking backI didn't focus enough

1:09:15.279,1:09:19.279
on
Emilia I was so

1:09:19.279,1:09:23.199
I was so I think my students were more
interested in race

1:09:23.199,1:09:26.480
because this is such a play about race
and racial

1:09:26.480,1:09:29.520
and of course we were going through some
of the tensions that were coming out

1:09:29.520,1:09:35.440
in the States at that time so maybe all
of us subconsciously and Emelia

1:09:35.440,1:09:39.759
there's a preamble to her testimony
against her husband she is

1:09:39.759,1:09:44.000
jaded about this whole what you know
they

1:09:44.000,1:09:49.359
they eat us like you know a meal and
they tire of us and you know the abuse

1:09:49.359,1:09:53.520
and she has of course his horrible
husbands she didn't marry very well at

1:09:53.520,1:09:57.679
all
how about

1:09:57.679,1:10:03.840
Hermia that we were looking at Hermia
she's breaking Athens law but she's not

1:10:03.840,1:10:08.640
breaking
English law Church of England

1:10:08.640,1:10:14.880
and eloping
that could spending the night in the

1:10:14.880,1:10:18.159
forest for someone you're not
that could get you into trouble that

1:10:18.159,1:10:23.840
could get you into Bridewell
hospital right

1:10:23.840,1:10:27.280
and taking around on a cart and people
throwing

1:10:27.280,1:10:33.760
things at you that sort of thing
so that's that's marginal well I love

1:10:33.760,1:10:37.679
how Shakespeare
does that though how he uses those

1:10:37.679,1:10:41.280
you know like your he uses these
different

1:10:41.280,1:10:44.400
settings andI was thinking actually
we've talked about the tempest of it

1:10:44.400,1:10:47.120
whenI was just
kind of preparing to teach this to my

1:10:47.120,1:10:50.159
students and doing the online stuff
recently

1:10:50.159,1:10:55.199
yeah I'm thinking our Milanese
convention supposed to be applying here

1:10:55.199,1:10:58.560
Italian conventions
are we supposed to be thinking of these

1:10:58.560,1:11:01.520
characters as
it was it was the question about

1:11:01.520,1:11:07.679
learning me or language
and I'm thinking okay we're working in

1:11:07.679,1:11:11.920
English
you know on the stage English is the

1:11:11.920,1:11:16.320
language that caliban is being taught
but these are Italian characters and and

1:11:16.320,1:11:20.480
no one kind of mentions
this necessarily when they're talking

1:11:20.480,1:11:25.280
about it when we're teaching it
andI started to really you know and

1:11:25.280,1:11:28.880
then you've
probably got latin being spoken at court

1:11:28.880,1:11:33.280
perhaps
in preference to the vernacular Italians

1:11:33.280,1:11:36.960
so
i just love what Shakespeare's doing

1:11:36.960,1:11:41.199
there andI think often it is to get
around various laws and for example when

1:11:41.199,1:11:45.280
you situate
contests between various royal

1:11:45.280,1:11:50.080
figures or noble figures and just be
like I'm just going to take the sting

1:11:50.080,1:11:54.239
out of this
and not locate it in the UK and not

1:11:54.239,1:11:58.080
mention
specific titles or specific i'll i'll

1:11:58.080,1:12:01.360
put it there
andI can get away with it and this will

1:12:01.360,1:12:03.920
pass
well we talked about censorship and of

1:12:03.920,1:12:06.640
course Shakespeare's plays are subject
to

1:12:06.640,1:12:13.679
approval and censorship to be performed
so yeah

1:12:13.679,1:12:20.080
and he does tend to avoid
not top he does a lot of topical but not

1:12:20.080,1:12:23.360
in
not in the time not in London in that

1:12:23.360,1:12:26.560
time and that got
you look at the list of playwrights who

1:12:26.560,1:12:32.080
spent some time in
jail and JonsonI think Marston did

1:12:32.080,1:12:35.760
I think there's a list that I have
written down somewhere

1:12:35.760,1:12:39.120
and Shakespeare there's no record that
he did because

1:12:39.120,1:12:42.880
it's in a different time so the only
time I can you know

1:12:42.880,1:12:46.239
there is there are books about the
drama of the city where he's being

1:12:46.239,1:12:49.600
directly referential
goes back to 'Romeo and Juliet' those two

1:12:49.600,1:12:51.920
characters at the beginning they're not
italian

1:12:51.920,1:12:57.199
those are English wannabe what
wannabe gallants you know they're not

1:12:57.199,1:13:01.840
quite there they are
fops they are the worst kind of ill

1:13:01.840,1:13:05.520
bred
one of these in the world and it's

1:13:05.520,1:13:10.560
something out of um
i don't know something out of a

1:13:10.560,1:13:13.840
I'm thinking of oasis the band you know
something else oh

1:13:13.840,1:13:21.040
like Noel, Liam Gallagher
yeah and and just having a spat right

1:13:21.040,1:13:25.120
there
40 000 people and they don't give a damn

1:13:25.120,1:13:28.480
they're just going to be who they are
and

1:13:28.480,1:13:34.640
you know and you know open up a beer
light up a cigarette out on stage that

1:13:34.640,1:13:38.960
sort of thing
and they're so directly going it's so

1:13:38.960,1:13:42.880
directly
street of London, but you're in Verona

1:13:42.880,1:13:47.679
and we know how those Italian
guys are they're all you know passion

1:13:47.679,1:13:52.480
and so forth so he does that very
cleverly and Tempest I think

1:13:52.480,1:13:56.320
is endless isn't it it's endless how
referential that play

1:13:56.320,1:14:02.800
is
it's why I enjoy teaching it so much in

1:14:02.800,1:14:06.960
a way and it also gets
picked up in there are someI mean some

1:14:06.960,1:14:09.760
of the
I'm sorry to come back to the vampire

1:14:09.760,1:14:12.880
writings but
but that's one of the things I've been

1:14:12.880,1:14:17.199
writing is by an American author Laurie
Handland or been reading is by Laurie

1:14:17.199,1:14:23.440
Handland and she
she manages to combine vampires. zombies

1:14:23.440,1:14:27.199
which obviously has some kind of
connection to

1:14:27.199,1:14:31.040
the kind of colonialism in the play
because we think about zombies coming

1:14:31.040,1:14:35.520
from like
west Indian law or Haitian kind of

1:14:35.520,1:14:41.360
folklore those sorts of figures and it
mashes all of these things up into what

1:14:41.360,1:14:46.880
is essentially a kind of
bodice ripper romance it's kind of a

1:14:46.880,1:14:50.960
Milly Sampson
but with sorry this is probably too

1:14:50.960,1:14:54.400
specific UK I don't know if there are
like us

1:14:54.400,1:14:59.199
equivalents but basically a kind of
romance erotic novel

1:14:59.199,1:15:03.040
for like young primarily aimed at young
women

1:15:03.040,1:15:06.400
but it's drawing all the tempers then
it's drawing on issues around

1:15:06.400,1:15:09.920
colonialism
and and you know the setting free of

1:15:09.920,1:15:13.840
Ariel and
those sorts of things how incredible

1:15:13.840,1:15:17.120
like this is just meant to be something
people pick up at a train station and

1:15:17.120,1:15:19.520
you know
read and chuck away at the end of the

1:15:19.520,1:15:23.120
journey but it does so by drawing on all
of that

1:15:23.120,1:15:27.120
um early on literature yeah there's a
manga element

1:15:27.120,1:15:30.239
in there too from what you're describing
and is there

1:15:30.239,1:15:36.320
the boys love theme in manga
which is something I'm not an expert on

1:15:36.320,1:15:42.000
I've just read an article
but it's big in my of course my students

1:15:42.000,1:15:45.840
are very
up on it but that sort of thing young

1:15:45.840,1:15:52.320
adult
popular culture that becomes

1:15:52.320,1:15:56.159
there is a bit because you know there's
a lot of competition out there

1:15:56.159,1:15:59.760
you can't just sit down and write a
vampire story and now and say

1:15:59.760,1:16:04.239
okay we got a scary person and a bunch
of people being scared

1:16:04.239,1:16:08.480
and have that go it has to there there
are all kinds of

1:16:08.480,1:16:12.400
twists and the genre that you have to
be there's an art

1:16:12.400,1:16:16.560
isI guess where I'm going to and that's
what you're seeing now where would you

1:16:16.560,1:16:18.880
where's the connection between vampire
and

1:16:18.880,1:16:24.159
anything Shakespearean that's a great
question wellI think Glenna Spur beat

1:16:24.159,1:16:28.880
me to it she did a superb reading of the
vampiric language in 'Romeo and Juliet'

1:16:28.880,1:16:33.360
which i'd never
I've never noticed before as a young

1:16:33.360,1:16:38.640
person going to see it
or even teaching it these things about

1:16:38.640,1:16:44.159
gaping moors so huge mouths that consume
you and

1:16:44.159,1:16:48.320
Romeo locking himself when his father
comments all he does now he's moping

1:16:48.320,1:16:51.760
around
Roselyn's you know shut himself up he

1:16:51.760,1:16:57.040
makes himself an artificial knight
there is so much language gothic

1:16:57.040,1:16:59.760
language
going on in that play andI know we have

1:16:59.760,1:17:04.640
a lot of friends
who enjoy looking at gothic spaces all

1:17:04.640,1:17:09.440
those sorts of things
umI think some of that forbidden love

1:17:09.440,1:17:12.880
right as well one of the reasons maybe
we create vampires

1:17:12.880,1:17:16.000
particularly in you know 19th century
fiction

1:17:16.000,1:17:20.320
is the thrill of forbidden love and
maybe the thrill of just kind of

1:17:20.320,1:17:24.080
breaking what your father says or a
breaking church law

1:17:24.080,1:17:27.920
maybe that wasn't a strong enough thrill
in the 19th century anymore and

1:17:27.920,1:17:32.320
thrills have to become something that
involves this more

1:17:32.320,1:17:36.239
physically deviant figure of the vampire
and immortals

1:17:36.239,1:17:40.880
and all those sorts of things soI kind
of see it as a continuity but it's just

1:17:40.880,1:17:44.719
like
you know let's take some of the things

1:17:44.719,1:17:48.080
Shakespeare as doing but we need to
ramp them up and make them

1:17:48.080,1:17:51.600
more forbidden that's it I think that's
what ford did

1:17:51.600,1:17:55.679
uh after Shakespeare he couldn't put on
you know 'Romeo and Juliet'

1:17:55.679,1:17:59.600
your mother and father don't want you to
know it's got to be something more

1:17:59.600,1:18:02.960
and you just see that going all the way
up into the gothic

1:18:02.960,1:18:06.960
you know what Victorian or early 19th
century

1:18:06.960,1:18:11.120
you've got to escalate it through
adaptationI think you know that that

1:18:11.120,1:18:14.560
happens with every
with literature with film andI mean

1:18:14.560,1:18:19.920
some of the work I was doing over summer
is about a kind of shift

1:18:19.920,1:18:27.120
from the capulet Tomb so Juliet being
imprisoned in the capulet Tomb which you

1:18:27.120,1:18:30.480
arguably self-imprisoned by drugging
yourself and

1:18:30.480,1:18:36.239
getting put in there as part of a plan
to be able to escape with Romeo

1:18:36.239,1:18:40.080
but actually a lot of these modern
retellingsI noticed focused less

1:18:40.080,1:18:43.120
on her physical imprisonment in that
space

1:18:43.120,1:18:46.640
and more in a sense of imprisonment in
her own body so

1:18:46.640,1:18:51.520
they kind of did the turn to the body
that was popular in 90s feminism

1:18:51.520,1:18:55.280
and they will have Juliettes who are
experiencing something much closer to

1:18:55.280,1:18:58.640
like
locked-in syndrome so it picks up on

1:18:58.640,1:19:04.400
maybe that's one of our current fears
in the world warren we know a lot more

1:19:04.400,1:19:08.320
about
medical states we know a lot more about

1:19:08.320,1:19:12.480
what happens to people in permanent
vegetative state and they take that and

1:19:12.480,1:19:16.000
that's the new fear the new fear is not
that your dad says no

1:19:16.000,1:19:19.600
the new fear is not that your dad puts
you

1:19:19.600,1:19:23.199
indirectly in a vault or leads to you
being in a vault

1:19:23.199,1:19:26.880
it's like what if although I'm supposed
to be able to

1:19:26.880,1:19:31.920
have all these roles in society and pick
whomI want what if my body fails me

1:19:31.920,1:19:37.920
and I'm stuck in there yeah and that
in these newer re-workings of Romeo and

1:19:37.920,1:19:41.600
Juliet for young women
becomes the source of fear so my body

1:19:41.600,1:19:46.159
its workings
its appearance which connects into

1:19:46.159,1:19:50.719
obviously lots of concern around
women's bodies and how they present

1:19:50.719,1:19:54.400
themselves and women's figures and
weight and size and all those sorts of

1:19:54.400,1:19:56.800
things
and this this literature for young

1:19:56.800,1:20:00.080
people today is just tapping into all of
that

1:20:00.080,1:20:03.120
but through Shakespeare so it's a
sort of re

1:20:03.120,1:20:07.840
a little bit retro if we're going
back to the 90s and I'm pretty familiar

1:20:07.840,1:20:11.199
with that area
because I'm a boomer but anyhow the

1:20:11.199,1:20:13.280
the mortal
coil you know it's all through

1:20:13.280,1:20:16.800
Shakespeare and
you know it might be men talking about

1:20:16.800,1:20:20.000
their bodies but the the notion of being
with

1:20:20.000,1:20:26.560
held within and
the idea of imprisonment being so

1:20:26.560,1:20:29.600
eminent I mean so it's so much right
there

1:20:29.600,1:20:33.199
the possibility if you were a
common woman

1:20:33.199,1:20:38.239
which most everybody was you know the
chances are if we were born

1:20:38.239,1:20:41.440
what are the chances that we would be
commoners right

1:20:41.440,1:20:48.560
and you could just be you taken
and and thrown into prison basically

1:20:48.560,1:20:55.760
a hospital for bad rumor for
fake news could be enough

1:20:55.760,1:21:00.800
and it basically an entire society
trying to make sure that your body

1:21:00.800,1:21:05.040
didn't go
into various places right just

1:21:05.040,1:21:10.000
a complete order a sense of control

1:21:11.679,1:21:14.560
there's a lot in these novels actually
you mentioned the body and the sense of

1:21:14.560,1:21:17.679
control and that your body shouldn't go
into certain places and we've been

1:21:17.679,1:21:21.920
talking about tis pity where we
have a a young woman who's pregnant by

1:21:21.920,1:21:25.120
her own brother
and of course it's outside of wedlock

1:21:25.120,1:21:29.679
because that was never going to happen
and in a lot of these novels they pick

1:21:29.679,1:21:34.639
up on maybe young women's fears today of
of pregnancy and the changes pregnancy

1:21:34.639,1:21:38.800
will
kind of produce on your body and you've

1:21:38.800,1:21:42.719
got some monstrous stuff in
we mentioned Stephanie Mayer's twilight

1:21:42.719,1:21:46.239
before about the supernatural fetus
that's almost

1:21:46.239,1:21:49.840
eating her up from the inside and this
is somehow

1:21:49.840,1:21:53.280
within the framework of a Romeo and
Juliet love story

1:21:53.280,1:22:00.000
likeI see it
i see it um

1:22:00.000,1:22:03.920
well whatI think it was going to do is
sort of finish up but I wanted to ask

1:22:03.920,1:22:07.440
you because I saw this
there's been a lot of controversy and

1:22:07.440,1:22:12.239
it's a Shakespearean related
is part of the stretch, the Harry

1:22:12.239,1:22:17.520
Potter thing, the
and where are we with that to bring us

1:22:17.520,1:22:22.960
up to date on
okay so thinking basically about the

1:22:22.960,1:22:27.760
argument with how how I guess fans of
Harry Potter are feeling people who are

1:22:27.760,1:22:31.440
perhaps my age maybe a little bit
younger who really invested themselves

1:22:31.440,1:22:34.639
in those novels
and we've been talking about liberating

1:22:34.639,1:22:37.360
right this idea that they were liberated
by like

1:22:37.360,1:22:41.120
it's cool to be the geek it's called to
be the outsider it's cool to be the

1:22:41.120,1:22:46.400
brainy girl like Hermione
and suddenly you have J.K. Rowling

1:22:46.400,1:22:52.639
turning around and
I would say I don't think I'm speaking

1:22:52.639,1:22:58.560
too strongly here kind of advocating
a transphobic position

1:22:58.560,1:23:05.840
or at least against transphobic women
and problematizing what counts as a

1:23:05.840,1:23:10.639
female body
very policing of who can be a female

1:23:10.639,1:23:14.239
what female attributes are being quite
essentialist

1:23:14.239,1:23:20.320
and the impact that that stance has for
a group of people who who kind of found

1:23:20.320,1:23:24.400
themselves in Harry Potter and and found
a

1:23:24.400,1:23:28.400
a potter burst that was hospitable that
was welcoming to

1:23:28.400,1:23:33.440
outsiders andI think you now feel very
threatened by her

1:23:33.440,1:23:38.239
othering people and saying well you're
not women

1:23:38.239,1:23:44.800
wow yeah I mean at least in the UK
andI know I have a kind of group of

1:23:44.800,1:23:48.719
friends who are very
well tend to be literature professors

1:23:48.719,1:23:52.960
or literature students
but this has been making I would say

1:23:52.960,1:23:56.239
kind of
if you can call Facebook headline news

1:23:56.239,1:24:01.520
it's been appearing on my feed
fairly regularly for the last

1:24:01.520,1:24:04.560
three months nowI would say I don't
know how on mine

1:24:04.560,1:24:11.920
on mine too and I'm I'm boomer
it's but it's showing up and

1:24:11.920,1:24:16.880
uh and it's well basically just sort
of the whole thing sort of makes me sad

1:24:16.880,1:24:21.040
because I had
you know the the story the narrative of

1:24:21.040,1:24:25.120
Rowling's
life is heroic

1:24:25.120,1:24:31.760
the I did go to her website and she
did write what you know of course

1:24:31.760,1:24:36.000
a very articulate position statement
basically

1:24:36.000,1:24:39.520
on this but of course you know what
comes up is she was

1:24:39.520,1:24:43.040
she was the victim of domestic
violence she had to

1:24:43.040,1:24:49.520
she was a single mother in every way
and faced abject poverty if I'm right

1:24:49.520,1:24:54.000
and you know bootstraps her way out
of this

1:24:54.000,1:24:57.920
and becomes a great success and
and someone who is

1:24:57.920,1:25:03.520
so admirable on so many fronts and
not not the least bit

1:25:03.520,1:25:06.800
up until we you know your points that
you're talking about

1:25:06.800,1:25:11.120
just extraordinarily regular old
person

1:25:11.120,1:25:15.520
you know the kind of person you you just
feel you could you could be friends with

1:25:15.520,1:25:21.360
you know not full of herself and
bringing with you know sort of like

1:25:21.360,1:25:24.639
Henry V
having a knowledge of where of

1:25:24.639,1:25:27.600
the other side
how can you be a great king when you

1:25:27.600,1:25:31.679
know the people right
you know your subjects and she knows her

1:25:31.679,1:25:36.560
subjects but then
she's fallen out with the

1:25:36.560,1:25:43.040
movement and recently my
colleague in let's say past three or

1:25:43.040,1:25:47.040
four years has
made the transition and she

1:25:47.040,1:25:50.800
is next door to me and we've been
friends for for years so

1:25:50.800,1:25:57.040
i am pretty we
during the past age we went out to lunch

1:25:57.040,1:25:59.520
at least once a week andI would
basically

1:25:59.520,1:26:02.560
it was an instructional moment for me
like where

1:26:02.560,1:26:10.159
where are we what's going on here and
it's

1:26:10.400,1:26:15.600
well I don't know yeahI mean I think
what you say everything about her

1:26:15.600,1:26:20.159
Rowling's difficult background
I think that almost makes it worse do

1:26:20.159,1:26:22.159
you know whatI mean that it disappoints
people

1:26:22.159,1:26:25.600
more that they go as someone who was
oppressed

1:26:25.600,1:26:30.000
as someone who was made to feel
worthless

1:26:30.000,1:26:35.360
you know by your abusive partner or by
society when you know she was raising

1:26:35.360,1:26:41.920
kids in an era when
we had a lot of anti-single mother

1:26:41.920,1:26:47.840
kind of nasty slurs going around
you know having been put in that

1:26:47.840,1:26:52.960
position of being
kind of if not literally spat on

1:26:52.960,1:26:56.320
you know getting a lot of abuse getting
a lot of like

1:26:56.320,1:27:00.719
we don't want to associate with you how
do you then

1:27:00.719,1:27:04.480
come to a position where you're putting
other people

1:27:04.480,1:27:10.880
in a similar situation where you are
excluding other people or making them

1:27:10.880,1:27:14.159
feel less than
I think that's really confusing for

1:27:14.159,1:27:17.679
peopleI think the literary professors
it poses some really interesting

1:27:17.679,1:27:20.560
questions
around death of the author so I have a

1:27:20.560,1:27:25.360
friend and colleague who is
adamant you just divorced J.K. Rowling

1:27:25.360,1:27:30.560
from her works you do the role of arts
death of the author stuff

1:27:30.560,1:27:34.400
and that's how you cope with it and I'm
not sure that I can but I'm more

1:27:34.400,1:27:37.920
inclined to context anyway I'm more
inclined to

1:27:37.920,1:27:42.480
say well who is the author where are
they coming from what are their biases

1:27:42.480,1:27:49.040
wellI am really not at liberty
to I'm really it's not at liberty i

1:27:49.040,1:27:54.159
could talk about anythingI want to
but it would just take too long the

1:27:54.159,1:27:57.679
there isI do know this and I'm not
speaking for myself I

1:27:57.679,1:28:01.199
I'm very lucky to have be in a position
where I get

1:28:01.199,1:28:07.440
news fresh off the press, I
and from someone who's also a an

1:28:07.440,1:28:10.480
upping
not up and coming a very well-known

1:28:10.480,1:28:13.840
linguist
in Semantics and so forth you know so

1:28:13.840,1:28:18.080
an expert
in sensitivity and language and so forth

1:28:18.080,1:28:20.880
so
but there is a feeling among peers of

1:28:20.880,1:28:24.400
mind that we
are in a we're walking through a cow

1:28:24.400,1:28:28.080
pasture
that is increasingly populated

1:28:28.080,1:28:31.360
by cows
and we increasingly have to watch where

1:28:31.360,1:28:35.120
we step
that you can you can say something that

1:28:35.120,1:28:39.600
may be taking a liberal
or phobic of on some any level

1:28:39.600,1:28:44.400
just by bringing up some word what was
it

1:28:44.400,1:28:47.920
Biden brought up the old word
that's a bunch of malarkey

1:28:47.920,1:28:52.239
which is an old term for BS and so forth
he was made fun of for using malarkey

1:28:52.239,1:28:55.679
and not
but you're not you're not really sure I

1:28:55.679,1:28:58.880
typically
tend to use the word guys for

1:28:58.880,1:29:03.360
instance
as the gender neutral and I was

1:29:03.360,1:29:06.480
called out by one of my dear old friends
and say no

1:29:06.480,1:29:10.239
you don't you don't walk into a room and
say how are you gals doing if it's a

1:29:10.239,1:29:13.920
mixed room or you know
whatever andI said well I don't know so

1:29:13.920,1:29:18.800
I talked to my friend
who the linguist and she says nope guys

1:29:18.800,1:29:22.800
has changed and it's a it's a good
gender-neutral term because you have

1:29:22.800,1:29:28.000
people who are in between
uh the binaries and so it's working you

1:29:28.000,1:29:32.560
know the word every word changes
cool change to have a different meaning

1:29:32.560,1:29:36.480
from
you know and many many examples so

1:29:36.480,1:29:39.760
so I don't know I just stay away I'm
trying I don't know if I use the word

1:29:39.760,1:29:43.679
guys
in this and and I typically will say

1:29:43.679,1:29:47.920
hey man
to a woman and I'm trying to stop doing

1:29:47.920,1:29:50.960
that but I'm not
I don't think I've offended anyone the

1:29:50.960,1:29:57.040
one that was years ago
was girl and I'm from the American south

1:29:57.040,1:30:03.679
and every woman from the age of birth
to 98 was okay

1:30:03.679,1:30:07.679
girl you know that's just and it was it
was part of

1:30:07.679,1:30:12.159
white discourse and black discourse
it was just

1:30:12.159,1:30:16.320
and so I was you know I went into
academe and I said okay I'm like

1:30:16.320,1:30:20.239
anybody who's over eight you know let's
just let's just be

1:30:20.239,1:30:25.679
safe and and and so
you know it takes a while for the public

1:30:25.679,1:30:30.239
to make this transition
and I do feel and this is a personal I

1:30:30.239,1:30:33.199
do feel that
you know we get the announcement and I'm

1:30:33.199,1:30:37.840
not in
the same feed. I don't and I'm in Japan

1:30:37.840,1:30:43.600
and suddenly I am
stepping in it and don't realize I am

1:30:43.600,1:30:47.920
and there is
a need maybe for there to be us a

1:30:47.920,1:30:52.320
transition
and allowance to transition

1:30:52.320,1:30:56.560
like my good friend who didn't
transition he just changed his name

1:30:56.560,1:31:01.760
years ago and he's still he but he
changed his name it took me a year or so

1:31:01.760,1:31:05.280
to get used to calling him by
his middle name rather than his first

1:31:05.280,1:31:10.639
name so that's what I would hope
will come of this. I think the best thing

1:31:10.639,1:31:12.880
is
just being able to talk about it isn't

1:31:12.880,1:31:17.040
it, it's being able to have discussions
and being able

1:31:17.040,1:31:20.560
you know if you feel comfortable talking
and then other people feel comfortable

1:31:20.560,1:31:24.719
questioning or saying well what about
this because there is no consensus

1:31:24.719,1:31:28.480
i don't think on on most issues you know
you can't

1:31:28.480,1:31:34.639
assume that somebody prefers to be
called hey guys or hey folks or

1:31:34.639,1:31:39.840
hey gentle folk or this maybe not a
wrong and right answer

1:31:39.840,1:31:44.000
I guess you know conversations are
always a negotiation

1:31:44.000,1:31:47.760
between yourself and the people you're
talking to so it's always going to have

1:31:47.760,1:31:52.159
to be dynamic isn't it you're always
at least if you want to get on with

1:31:52.159,1:31:54.800
people
you're always kind of doing that thing

1:31:54.800,1:32:00.000
of like sensing the room and sensing and
kind of changing

1:32:00.000,1:32:03.199
and I mean some of the things you've
talked about are so they're so

1:32:03.199,1:32:06.880
regionally influenced as well right
because I've tried to say

1:32:06.880,1:32:10.239
because I'm a big hey guys person too
but I've had

1:32:10.239,1:32:14.239
I've tried to change it to hey folks and
then I'm thinking do people

1:32:14.239,1:32:18.639
think that I'm kind of appropriating an
American nurse or

1:32:18.639,1:32:22.880
because we don't necessarily say hey
folks how y'all doing

1:32:22.880,1:32:28.320
like but I kind of you know sometimes
I'm like well that's quite useful and

1:32:28.320,1:32:33.679
y'all I find quite useful and I
I find a second person plural very

1:32:33.679,1:32:37.199
useful
it's so good I love it but when I write

1:32:37.199,1:32:40.800
it I feel people might
you know kind of think she's kind of

1:32:40.800,1:32:44.880
faking this American persona she's
already so mixed up she's got Australian

1:32:44.880,1:32:50.560
and English all mashed together
what's going on but you know

1:32:50.560,1:32:54.239
language should be playful andI guess
that's going to be something that you

1:32:54.239,1:32:58.560
come back to
with other folks in your talk

1:32:58.560,1:33:02.880
right that language it's playful and it
should be joyous and

1:33:02.880,1:33:06.639
and we should be able to experiment with
it yeah and by the wayI recently

1:33:06.639,1:33:11.280
watched a podcast done by
these journalists from Rolling Stone

1:33:11.280,1:33:15.199
and one of the guys and it was funny but
he was making fun of how this one

1:33:15.199,1:33:21.199
politician was using the word
folks oh yeah and not not in a

1:33:21.199,1:33:25.120
insensitive way but just sort of making
fun and I'm going oh come on don't take

1:33:25.120,1:33:30.239
that away from me because that was my
substitute like you for guys and so I

1:33:30.239,1:33:35.120
think I'm going to hang on to folks
but in my experienceI don't know how

1:33:35.120,1:33:40.320
i do know in the UK the people and and
this is very Shakespearean how

1:33:40.320,1:33:47.120
you go from the highest level of formal
delicate highly sensitive language you

1:33:47.120,1:33:51.679
know arguments made in the
most let's let's sayI wantI don't want

1:33:51.679,1:33:55.600
to say litigious
but highly formalized and highly

1:33:55.600,1:33:59.440
delicate even one mistake
could get you kicked out of court that's

1:33:59.440,1:34:03.199
the end of your life
you know you spent all of this money on

1:34:03.199,1:34:05.679
your
dress you're in you're in debt to the

1:34:05.679,1:34:09.440
tailor and that's a joke
and you are trying to come up you know

1:34:09.440,1:34:13.120
you're a rally or a bacon or someone
trying to make their way

1:34:13.120,1:34:17.040
up and you in one flaw in the way you
express yourself

1:34:17.040,1:34:20.560
and you were out you know you were so
out

1:34:20.560,1:34:24.719
and then it transitions into this you
know foppish

1:34:24.719,1:34:30.080
brutal street language in so many
places that we could cite

1:34:30.080,1:34:34.880
and so this is very interesting to
me trying to teach this you know how you

1:34:34.880,1:34:39.520
can go from one to the other
Tom I think you have to do something on

1:34:39.520,1:34:41.440
the fact that you know everyone's saying
like oh

1:34:41.440,1:34:46.480
cancel culture all this cancel culture
it's so dangerous for white people to

1:34:46.480,1:34:50.239
speak now or older people speak now
you can kind of point them back and go

1:34:50.239,1:34:54.560
cancel culture existed
in Shakespeare's time and it existed to

1:34:54.560,1:34:57.840
the extent that you get your head
chopped off so

1:34:57.840,1:35:03.199
well no this is nothing yeah any of us
who grew up in polite society

1:35:03.199,1:35:06.800
right andI didI was very country we
were very we grew up very much in the

1:35:06.800,1:35:10.000
country
you were in this you're in Adelaide

1:35:10.000,1:35:13.920
during your adolescence and so forth but
there were there were codes of conduct

1:35:13.920,1:35:18.159
that were very strict
and I was going to go back to the

1:35:18.159,1:35:22.719
UK the accents there is a
and this happens in the States to a

1:35:22.719,1:35:27.600
degree there's no way I survive
in academe with the accent I grew up

1:35:27.600,1:35:32.400
with
okay so you know being using sensitive

1:35:32.400,1:35:36.080
and proper language and speaking
about

1:35:36.080,1:35:40.800
people who are transitioning or people
who have transitioned this is nothing new

1:35:40.800,1:35:44.400
it comes fast would be the only
complaint and sometimes I don't see it

1:35:44.400,1:35:47.360
when
when it enters but I've been doing

1:35:47.360,1:35:52.719
this all my life and you may have too
in some certain ways that we we change

1:35:52.719,1:35:59.920
inflection and and how we speak
depending upon

1:35:59.920,1:36:03.840
well let's say in this broadcast I
wouldn't go and I wouldn't drift into

1:36:03.840,1:36:11.040
any dialect thatI had when I was
uh say 14 years old. It would,

1:36:11.040,1:36:15.440
it would murder me. It would be worse
than being transphobic

1:36:15.440,1:36:21.520
because come on you know American
American southern white male with an

1:36:21.520,1:36:26.800
accent to boot oh my
oh my and I i don't think you

1:36:26.800,1:36:30.159
probably have had because it
what I know from my British friends is

1:36:30.159,1:36:33.679
there's a great love it seems a sort of
love affair with Australia

1:36:33.679,1:36:38.719
and things Australia that I've picked up
on but I might be a little wrong about

1:36:38.719,1:36:42.080
that
I don't know well you know it's

1:36:42.080,1:36:46.320
interestingI think whenI got to
AustraliaI was a bit picked on for my

1:36:46.320,1:36:50.400
umI don't know that it was my British
accent so much as

1:36:50.400,1:36:55.760
around in Adelaide
certain vows are associated with like

1:36:55.760,1:37:00.159
class really
class is a good example

1:37:00.159,1:37:04.159
and they associated my vows with being
from Melbourne

1:37:04.159,1:37:08.000
and at the time Adelaide and Melbourne
had a great rivalry because Melbourne

1:37:08.000,1:37:11.199
stole the grand prix from Adelaide as
the way that

1:37:11.199,1:37:16.080
people put it so there was a little like
where are you from

1:37:16.080,1:37:19.119
and actually people were surprised when
I said England because they thought i

1:37:19.119,1:37:23.440
was just gonna say interstate I'm from
Victoria that kind of thing

1:37:23.440,1:37:30.400
whenI came back to the UK people said i
soI got an Australian accent of sorts

1:37:30.400,1:37:35.920
umI can tell it in some ways it it
sounds a bit transatlantic so my tur

1:37:35.920,1:37:40.880
sounds like a dirt
sometimes like I'm trying to think of

1:37:40.880,1:37:44.880
a good
you know example of that um

1:37:44.880,1:37:48.239
like instead of battered I might say
vetted

1:37:48.239,1:37:51.679
or something a little along those lines
so

1:37:51.679,1:37:55.119
i feel my accent is pretty mixed up I'm
lucky becauseI think

1:37:55.119,1:38:00.080
in UK academia my generation has

1:38:00.159,1:38:04.080
not had to stick to that thing of losing
your accent or kind of hiding your

1:38:04.080,1:38:10.000
accent behind something quite generic
and received pronunciation and UK is

1:38:10.000,1:38:12.800
getting
better at that more generally our radio

1:38:12.800,1:38:18.719
announcers our television presenters
to the point thatI can't understand i

1:38:18.719,1:38:22.080
sometimes because my history with BBC
is

1:38:22.080,1:38:25.119
when I started listening to BBC it was
all RP

1:38:25.119,1:38:29.440
and they became much more aware of you
know regional dialect and so forth

1:38:29.440,1:38:32.800
but it's certain cases there are people
who speak with such an accident that I'm

1:38:32.800,1:38:36.000
losing a percentage of what they're
saying

1:38:36.000,1:38:39.920
yep I think that should make people feel
more confident though for example your

1:38:39.920,1:38:43.199
language learners
like don't worry don't worry if you're

1:38:43.199,1:38:46.880
well obviously for class you need to
worry about getting your pronunciation

1:38:46.880,1:38:50.560
hang on there but if you're gonna have a
trace of your Japanese accent when

1:38:50.560,1:38:52.800
you're speaking English you know don't
worry about that and

1:38:52.800,1:38:56.639
and people in Britain are getting used
to hearing English spoken in so many

1:38:56.639,1:39:01.119
different ways
and you know English is a world language

1:39:01.119,1:39:05.040
and there are so many ways of kind of
making it your own like Singaporean

1:39:05.040,1:39:09.440
English
English hopefully it will encourage

1:39:09.440,1:39:13.920
people to
have a go just to have a go and and be

1:39:13.920,1:39:17.440
don't
you know feel bad about the way you do

1:39:17.440,1:39:20.400
English everybody does English a little
bit different

1:39:20.400,1:39:24.239
well and we can tie that to Shakespeare
because you get that diversity

1:39:24.239,1:39:28.480
and I'm not sure there's anyone because
of the body of plays attributed

1:39:28.480,1:39:33.119
now of course the recent research is
showing much more collaboration than

1:39:33.119,1:39:37.920
than before andI kind of like that
because it sort of reduces the icon and

1:39:37.920,1:39:41.679
and turn we're in a community aren't we
a community of playwrights

1:39:41.679,1:39:46.639
who are taking a a vulgar language
the vulgar firm not the latin they're

1:39:46.639,1:39:49.520
taking the vernacular and lifting it up
to this

1:39:49.520,1:39:53.360
this great level on two different fronts
you know the

1:39:53.360,1:39:56.639
the iambic pentameter front but also the
area of

1:39:56.639,1:40:00.400
comic exchanges and sometimes very rough
shot

1:40:00.400,1:40:03.760
but you you're seeing that sort of
diversity and you're

1:40:03.760,1:40:06.800
you're in a city that has had a lot of
immigration

1:40:06.800,1:40:10.400
uh a lot of these plays were printed
because of the you know the printers who

1:40:10.400,1:40:15.679
came over from
Antwerp or wherever and who

1:40:15.679,1:40:19.199
were aliensI think they were they were
called at that time

1:40:19.199,1:40:27.040
uh so I there is that lesson
but anyway I have kept you I have

1:40:27.040,1:40:28.960
probably kept
you could have written a critical

1:40:28.960,1:40:32.960
article and had another publication or
or four or five more grants in this

1:40:32.960,1:40:36.480
period of time
the rate that you work at Sarah I

1:40:36.480,1:40:41.040
would like you to stay
for a moment afterwards but well I

1:40:41.040,1:40:45.520
I think we unless you have any closing
remarks I think we're almost

1:40:45.520,1:40:50.080
through. No thank you so much for having
me on this series that's the only

1:40:50.080,1:40:54.800
closing remark I have um
i feel like I'm among very eminent and

1:40:54.800,1:40:59.440
wonderful company
so yeah imminent I don't know

1:40:59.440,1:41:03.440
wonderfulI don't know I have to ask my
wife about that she's

1:41:03.440,1:41:07.040
I'm getting home a little bit late for
night for supper

1:41:07.040,1:41:10.400
oh no I got some chocolate I'm coming
with gifts

1:41:10.400,1:41:13.679
but we are we're pretty strict
about that

1:41:13.679,1:41:17.040
in our household our kids are grown and
and

1:41:17.040,1:41:20.480
and we have each other so I
don't

1:41:20.480,1:41:27.920
usually work late although in Japan
people people work late anyhow

1:41:27.920,1:41:31.600
thank you so much the pleasure was
all mine and I'm sure all

1:41:31.600,1:41:38.960
anyone who sees this will
will be very happy to

1:41:38.960,1:41:44.000
have heard what you've had to say and
and I'm so happy to have now

1:41:44.000,1:41:47.119
a work sample because asI contact
people

1:41:47.119,1:41:50.239
you know I'm going to have several work
samples here in the next couple of weeks

1:41:50.239,1:41:53.840
i can say just look at this instead of
trying to write out this

1:41:53.840,1:41:57.199
because because people aren't as relaxed
as you are

1:41:57.199,1:42:02.080
about open company a lot of a lot of our
friends in academia a lot of very fine

1:42:02.080,1:42:06.400
people
kind of want to stick to the formal

1:42:06.400,1:42:10.000
you know presentation of their work and
so forth but I'm hoping this will

1:42:10.000,1:42:13.600
take a little bit of
get a little bit of a momentum have some

1:42:13.600,1:42:17.199
legs as they say
and if it does then it's it's because

1:42:17.199,1:42:20.639
of your
contribution here and your willingness

1:42:20.639,1:42:25.199
to to spend some time with us
uh it was my hope that we could have you

1:42:25.199,1:42:31.199
in our studio we have a nice studio
and it was my hope that next year you

1:42:31.199,1:42:34.320
know you would be here we could
get a team of our Shakespeare

1:42:34.320,1:42:37.760
association of Japan
people and bring you in and thenI could

1:42:37.760,1:42:42.480
do this
but but the tech the technology has

1:42:42.480,1:42:46.480
allowed us to do this
this way so again thank you so much oh

1:42:46.480,1:42:57.840
you're welcome thank you Thomas

1:42:59.760,1:43:06.850
[Music]

1:43:08.840,1:43:11.840
so

1:43:15.760,1:43:17.840
you