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I encourage students to think of the classroom as a unique space in which there is a continued opportunity to experience kinds of interaction that are generally not possible outside of a classroom. When we interrogate various art forms, we are always communicating with other minds and cultures, and we are also talking to one another about deep convictions, questions, and aspirations. Thus, the work we do fosters communication, tolerance, and intellectual and emotional growth, and I seek to underscore this from the start so that students will see in their studies of sometimes seemingly distant cultures an immediacy about which they can become excited and with which they can engage. A good classroom environment is a complex set of deeply personal exchanges that are organized around a central activity of intellectual inquiry. True intellection is best accomplished in an atmosphere of trust, which I seek to encourage from the beginning of any course. I strive to demonstrate to students that I take them seriously—their intellects as well as their sensibilities—and I hope to communicate that I will do my best to show them why the subject matter I teach engages me and how it can have meaning for them. My formal training is in late medieval and Renaissance literature, but my real joy in the classroom is showing students how all the arts are interconnected and how they are discrete imaginative processes and ways of knowing the world.
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