The Tempest in Wisconsin connected over 90 teachers and 1500 students throughout the state in the study of William Shakespeare’s last and perhaps most enigmatic play. Over the course of the 2017-2018 academic year, program participants explored how The Tempest anticipates contemporary debates around colonialism, imperialism, racism, indigeneity, gender, and disability.
First performed in 1611, The Tempest takes place on a remote island where exiled sorcerer Prospero seeks redemption for himself and his daughter Miranda by orchestrating several encounters between human and supernatural, native and foreign, noble and treacherous characters. The play offers a reflection on literary creation itself, with Prospero figured as an “author” within the play. It also features some of Shakespeare’s most unforgettable and complex characters: the spirit Ariel, the Algerian witch Sycorax, and her deformed and enslaved son Caliban—an anagram of “cannibal.”
As they read the play and explored its hundreds of adaptations (including sci-fi movies, prison dramas, and classic opera, and a novelistic adaptation by Margaret Atwood called Hag-Seed), students and educators engaged with the histories and legacies of transatlantic travel, conquest and slavery in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Participants joined worldwide celebrations of Shakespeare’s 400-year legacy, which at UW-Madison included an exhibit of Shakespeare’s original First Folio, arguably the most treasured book to date.
Teaching Resources
Teachers participating in the program received “Teaching The Tempest in Wisconsin” curricular guide and supporting materials. They also attended two educator colloquia on October 5th and February 2nd, which featured talks by campus experts, workshopping activities and discussions, and cultural and curricular presentations. Our participating educators and students joined UW-Madison faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, Center staff and members of the public for the Great World Texts in Wisconsin’s Annual Student Conference on Monday, April 3, 2017.
Keynote Speaker: Student Conference and Public Lecture
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian and award-winning author who grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and in Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College. She is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her novels include The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; and The Handmaid’s Tale, which was recently adapted as a TV series with MGM and Hulu.
Atwood met with high school students from across the state at the Great World Texts in Wisconsin program’s Annual Student Conference, where they discussed Hag-Seed—her adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. She also delivered a public lecture as part of the Center for the Humanities’ “Humanities Without Boundaries” speaker series.
Support for The Tempest in Wisconsin
The Tempest in Wisconsin was an initiative of the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, supported by the A. W. Mellon Foundation; the Evjue Foundation; UW-Madison Libraries; the Department of English; the Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters & Science; the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction; American Family Insurance, and the Promega Corporation.
Supporting Materials
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Historical Background and Contexts
Karen Britland. “Politics, Religion, Geography and Travel: Historical Contexts of the Last Plays.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Ed. Catherine M. S. Alexander. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 71-90.
Jeff Dolven and Sean Keilen. “Shakespeare’s Reading.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 15-30.
Lori Anne Ferrell. “Religion.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 681-90.
Gerald Graff and James Phelan (eds). “Sources and Contexts.” The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. MacMillan, 2009. 116-33.
Stephen Greenblatt. “The Traces of Shakespeare’s Life.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 1-14.
Donna B. Hamilton. “Shakespeare’s Romances and Jacobean Political Discourse.” Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Other Late Romances. Ed. Maurice Hunt. The Modern Language Association of America, 1992. 64-71.
Carole Levin. “The Society of Shakespeare’s England.” Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Ed. Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin. Oxford University Press, 2003. 93-102.
Claire McEachern. “Literature and National Identity.” The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. Ed. David Loewenstein and Janel Mueller. Cambridge University Press, 2003. 313-42.
——–. “Shakespeare, Religion and Politics.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 185-200.
Stephen Orgel. “Introduction” and “The Performance of Desire.” Impersonations: The Performance of Gender in Shakespeare’s England. Cambridge University Press, 1996. 1-9 and 10-30.
Lena Cowen Orlin. “Ideas of Order.” Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Ed. Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin. Oxford University Press, 2003. 139-50.
Jeffrey A. Rufo. “‘He needs will be Absolute Milan’: The Political Thought of The Tempest.” The Tempest: A Critical Reader. Ed. Alden T. Vaughan and Virginia Mason Vaughan. Bloomsbury, 2014. 137-64.
Johann P. Sommerville. “Literature and National Identity.” The Cambridge History of Early Modern English Literature. Ed. David Loewenstein and Janel Mueller. Cambridge University Press, 2003. 459-86.
Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. Introduction to The Tempest. Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2011. 1-138.
Empire, Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Jerry Brotton. “‘This Tunis, sir, was Carthage’: Contesting Colonialism in The Tempest.” Post-Colonial Shakespeares. Ed. Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin. Routledge, 1998. 23-42.
Lesley B. Cormack. “Brittania Rules the Waves?: Images of Empire in Elizabethan England.” Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain. Ed. Andrew Gordon and Bernhard Klein. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 45-68.
Alison Games. “Introduction.” The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660. Oxford University Press, 2008. 3-15.
Trevor R. Griffiths. “‘This Island’s Mine’: Caliban and Colonialism.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 130-51.
Jonathan Gil Harris. “Shakespeare and Race.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 201-16.
Stephen Greenblatt. “Learning to Curse: Aspects of Linguistic Colonialism in the Sixteenth Century.” Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture. Routledge, 1990. 22-45.
Imtiaz Habib. “Caliban and Colonial Education.” Shakespeare and Race: Postcolonial Praxis in the Early Modern Period. University Press of America, 1999.
Peter Hulme. “Columbus and the Cannibals” and “Prospero and Caliban.” Colonial Encounters: Europe and the Native Carribbean, 1492-1797. Methuen, 1986. 13-43.
Ania Loomba. Selections from Gender, Race, Renaissance Drama. Reprinted in The Tempest: A Case Study in Critical Controversy. Ed. Gerald Graff and James Phelan. MacMillan, 2009. 324-36.
Meredith Anne Skura. “Discourse and the Individual: The Case of Colonialism in The Tempest.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 60-90.
Ann Thompson. “‘Miranda, Where’s Your Sister?’: Reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 234-43.
Alden T. Vaughan. “Caliban in the ‘Third World’: Shakespeare’s Savage as Sociopolitical Symbol.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 247-66.
Science, Technology, and Magic
Caterina Albano. “Visible Bodies: Cartography and Anatomy.” Literature, Mapping, and the Politics of Space in Early Modern Britain. Ed. Andrew Gordon and Bernhard Klein. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 89-106.
William Donahue. “Astronomy.” The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science. Ed. Katherine Park and Lorraine Daston. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 562-95.
Anthony Grafton. “The New Science and the Traditions of Humanism.” The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. Ed. Jill Kraye. Cambridge University Press, 1996. 203-23.
Steven J. Harris. “Networks of Correspondence, Travel, and Exchange.” The Cambridge History of Science: Volume 3, Early Modern Science. Ed. Katherine Park and Lorraine Daston. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 341-62.
Pamela O. Long. “Science and Technology.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 247-57.
Barbara A. Mowat. “Prospero, Agrippa, and Hocus Pocus.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 193-213.
Peter Whitfield. “Mapping Shakespeare’s World.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 1-14.
Theatre
Anthony B. Dawson. “Shakespeare on the Stage.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 233-52.
Penny Gay. “Women and Shakespearean Performance.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 155-73.
Andrew Gurr. “Theater.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 67-77.
Tiffany Stern. “The Theatre of Shakespeare’s London.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 45-60.
Keith Sturgess. “‘A Quaint Device’: The Tempest at the Blackfriars.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 107-29.
Gary Taylor. “Shakespeare’s Plays on Renaissance Stages.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 1-20.
Masque and Music
Kristiaan P. Aercke. “‘An Odd Angle of the Isle’: Teaching the Courtly Art of The Tempest.” Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Other Late Romances. Ed. Maurice Hunt. The Modern Language Association of America, 1992. 146-52.
Martin Butler. “Introduction.” The Stuart Masque and Political Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 1-7.
David Lindley. “Music.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 135-41.
——–. “Blackfriars, Music and Masque: Theatrical Contexts of the Last Plays.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Ed. Catherine M. S. Alexander. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 29-46.
Jean Macintyre. “Court Masques.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 155-60.
Genre, Form, and Language
Janette Dillon. “Elizabethan Comedy.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. Ed. Alexander Leggatt. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 47-63.
Reginald Foakes. “Romances.” Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide. Ed. Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin. Oxford University Press, 2003. 249-60.
David Galbraith. “Theories of Comedy.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy. Ed. Alexander Leggatt. Cambridge University Press, 2001. 3-17.
Jonathan Hope. “Shakespeare and Language.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 77-90.
Russ McDonald. “Reading The Tempest.” Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Alden T. Vaughan. G. K. Hall, 1998. 214-33.
Gordon McMullan. “What is a ‘Late Play’?” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Ed. Catherine M. S. Alexander. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 5-28.
Michael E. Mooney. “Defining the Dramaturgy of the Late Romances.” Approaches to Teaching Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Other Late Romances. Ed. Maurice Hunt. The Modern Language Association of America, 1992. 49-56.
The First Folio and Print Culture
Gabriel Egan. “The Provenance of the Folio Texts.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2016. 68-85.
B. D. R. Higgins. “Printing the First Folio.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2016. 30-47.
Edmund G. C. King. “Editors.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2016. 120-36.
Chris Laoutaris. “The Prefatorial Material.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2016. 48-67.
Eric Rasmussen. “Publishing the First Folio.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s First Folio. Ed. Emma Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2016. 18-29.
Emma Smith. “Reading the First Folio.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Ed. Catherine M. S. Alexander. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 155-69.
Global Shakespeare
Martin Banham et al. “Shakespeare and Africa.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 284-99.
Anston Bosman. “Shakespeare and Globalization.” The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta De Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 285-302.
Anthony B. Dawson. “International Shakespeare.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 174-93.
Christine Dymkowski. “Power Play: Dhaka Theatre’s Bangla Tempest.” Shakespeare Beyond English: A Global Experiment. Ed. Susan Bennett and Christie Carson. Cambridge University Press, 2013. 141-9.
John Gillies. “Globe, Theatrum Mundi.” The Cambridge Guide to the Worlds of Shakespeare. Volume 1. Ed. Bruce R. Smith. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 60-6.
John Gillies et al. “Shakespeare on the Stages of Asia.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage. Ed. Stanley Wells and Sarah Stanton. Cambridge University Press, 2002. 259-83.
Martin Orkin. “The Tempest: ‘Any strange beast there makes a man’.” Local Shakespeares: Proximations and Power. Routledge, 2005. 142-64.
Virginia Mason Vaughan. “Literary Invocations of The Tempest.” The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Last Plays. Ed. Catherine M. S. Alexander. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 155-72.
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Participating Schools
In 2016-17, 26 high schools and more than 90 educators from around the state participated in The Tempest in Wisconsin program.
- Bay Port High School, GREEN BAY
- Big Foot High School, WALWORTH
- Brookfield Central High School, BROOKFIELD
- Chippewa Falls Senior High School, CHIPPEWA FALLS
- Clark Street Community School, MIDDLETON
- Clinton High School, CLINTON
- Cochrane-Fountain City School, FOUNTAIN CITY
- Community High School, MILWAUKEE
- EAGLE School of Madison, MADISON
- Elkhart Lake-Glenbeulah High School, ELKHART LAKE
- Green Bay East High School, GREEN BAY
- Hartford Union High School, HARTFORD
- IDEAS Academy, SHEBOYGAN
- James Madison Academic Campus, MILWAUKEE
- Laconai High School, LAKE MILLS
- Lake Mills High School, LAKE MILLS
- Lodi High School, LODI
- Madison Country Day School, MIDDLETON
- Madison East High School, MADISON
- Milwaukee High School of the Arts, MILWAUKEE
- New Horizons Charter School, MILWAUKEE
- Oshkosh North High School, OSHKOSH
- Oshkosh West High School, OSHKOSH
- Osseo-Fairchild High School, OSSEO
- Rock University High School, JANESVILLE
- St. Francis Xavier High School, APPLETON