Category Archives: Teaching

A Reading List is Not a Syllabus, part II

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Sharyn

For the first book post in this series about the anti-racist reading list, I’d like to discuss Harriet Jacobs’ 1861 book Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which you can find and read for free on the Internet. … Continue reading →

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#CiteBlackWomen

Posted on June 6, 2019 by Sharyn

As an academic, citations are a major part of my work and take up a significant amount of my writing time. There are different styles to adhere to depending on the publication venue for the work, checks and double checks … Continue reading →

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Booker T. Washington Checks Out of a Hotel…

Posted on May 31, 2018 by Sharyn

1903 was a particularly difficult year for African Americans, as described in Douglas Blackmon’s book, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. In that year alone, at least 85 African Americans were … Continue reading →

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Confronting Tokenism in the Syllabus

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Sharyn

With the news that heretofore widely beloved author Sherman Alexie is apparently a real monster who has preyed on women–particularly Native women–and threatened to ruin the careers of anyone who reported his sexual harassment, I had to confront my own … Continue reading →

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Critical Thinking & Source Evaluation: It’s Sexier Than You Might Think!

Posted on February 24, 2018 by Sharyn

First, let me say that it has been a real struggle this semester, and I have pushed blogging way down my “next actions” list. I should be committing to write here much more, and I intend to get back on … Continue reading →

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2017 Reading List

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Sharyn

Happy New Year! We are officially in 2018. I find New Year’s Eve/Day to be a bit of a downer holiday. Celebrating the onward march of time can be a little depressing, but mainly as an academic, January is hardly … Continue reading →

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Angels in America at the Actors Theatre

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Sharyn

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to see Part 2, “Perestroika,” of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. As I have mentioned several times in this blog, I teach Angels regularly as part of my 20th century … Continue reading →

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Pageants Used to be Theatrical

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Sharyn

Welcome Back! If you were able to take Labor Day off, I hope you relaxed and had a great day. If you weren’t able to take the day off, I hope you got paid extra for working on this day … Continue reading →

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Learning is More Important Than Teaching

Posted on August 15, 2017 by Sharyn

Last week, I got to attend a teaching and learning conference and surprisingly, the keynote was wonderful. I say this because I have honestly been to so many conferences over the years for which the keynote was decidedly a snooze. … Continue reading →

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Teaching A Streetcar Named Desire

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Sharyn

I’m happy to share this post I wrote for the Theater Historiography website about multimodal approaches to teaching Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. I like to use the play text combined wth film, animation, and visual art sources in the classroom. … Continue reading →

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