Teaching Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times: Titanic Optimism

An investigation of the issues affecting the teaching of Shakespeare in non-elite public universities and private liberal arts colleges in the US, combined with a set of imaginative responses to those problems. Shakespeare in Tempestuous Times investigates the place of Shakespeare where almost all US students encounter his work-at non-elite public universities and small liberal arts colleges.Increasingly, these students are taught by contingent or overstretched tenured professors. Growth in higher education has been constant over the past fifty years, fueled by democratization.But lately, democratization has lost its allure: higher education is too expensive, too politicized, and students and families think hard about the investment. And now higher education faces another daunting challenge, a demographic cliff, beginning in 2026: a reduction of approximately 15% in the college-age cohort in the decade following.Already over the past ten years, for-profit institutions have failed, smal