Dr Peter Kirwan delivering his keynote lecture
Dr Peter Kirwan gave a keynote lecture at the ‘Teaching Early Modern Drama’ conference at the University of Warwick on 4 May 2019. The conference brought together researchers, practitioners and teachers at all levels to share best practice, considering the challenges, opportunities and techniques for teaching Shakespeare and his contemporaries today.
Peter’s lecture, which opened the event, focused on the use of trigger warnings in teaching Shakespeare, prompted by recent controversies over universities ‘warning’ students before taking Shakespeare classes. Peter’s paper argued for the value of content notes, not only as a welfare matter but perhaps more importantly as a means of helping students develop critical engagement with the issues raised by texts that are too often treated as over-familiar. Looking at practical classroom activities, contemporary performance, and critical issues raised by plays such as Titus Andronicus and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter’s talk argued for some of the ways in which allowing Shakespeare to be seen as ‘dangerous’ can help generate acts of ethical criticism.
Information about the event can be found here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/seminars/sos/
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