Researching Shakespeare Socially

"Now, I am alone" -- Hamlet 2.2.558
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" -- Henry V 4.3.62

Why do those researching and writing about Shakespeare do so alone? Nothing could be more social than drama: the players, the audience, the great ensemble of people that come together to make and enjoy a performance.

Something changes when Shakespeare shifts from being entertainment to being a subject of study. Of course, classrooms are social environments, often lively with discussion, recitations, amateur soliloquies, etc. But when students and scholars get down to the serious business of writing and researching and writing, they are no longer (like King Henry's embattled Englishment at Agincourt) "we few, we happy few"; no, they are more like the introspective (and often melancholic) Hamlet -- left to themselves to ruminate on meanings in unhealthy isolation.

Should Shakespeare be studied collaboratively?

We live in a new age, a time in which it is more natural to be social than to be isolated, a time when it is unnatural not to be sharing constantly through the available social media through which we update ourselves and others, connecting through the rich variety of content so literally at hand today.

Sadly, too many students (and their teachers) segregate their socially mediated selves from their academic selves. But why should they? If via Facebook or Twitter I can express interest in current events or report to a network of friends about what gets my attention, why can't I (or won't I) narrate my encounters with Shakespeare (or any school subject)?


But there is more to it than simply introducing one's academic work into one's casual social streams. It's about creating a personal learning network. It's about rethinking the process of how substantial analysis of literary work is conducted in the digital age. It's about finding value in the rehearsal, not just the performance; in the draft, not just the completed paper. And it's about moving past paper's limits to embrace the multiple media that make not just the presentation of ideas about Shakespeare more interesting, but the process of analyzing and experiencing Shakespeare more robust.

So, in the spirit of matching a very social cultural phenomenon -- Shakespeare and the experience of his  great works -- with the social media of today, I have created this blog for my students and I to use to narrate our processes of discovery, to draft our ideas in an open context. They will aim at producing a traditional research paper about Shakespeare, but will go about it in a socially optimized way.

I will invite my students to post their thinking about Shakespeare here, and we will use this blog to respond to one another, to build upon themes, to link to relevant other sites and media, and to move from a broad, brainstorming level of thinking about Shakespeare to specific claims and organized thought that demonstrates developed, high-level criticism of Shakespeare's works. Ultimately my students will have their completed work permanently posted online in an archive. This blog will be a companion to their finished pieces, evidence of their thinking and interacting and the general development and expansion of their ideas.