Shakespeare's Leadership Lessons: Performance and Politics in the Pines

Catalog description

Allows students to read, perform and debate Shakespeare's relevant lessons for 21st-century leadership through three classic plays, two unique pedagogies and one unique setting. Students read Shakespeare's bildungsroman of leadership and statesmanship, The Life of Henry V, and participate in a pre-departure seminar providing a context to read, perform and discuss The Tragedy of Macbeth and The Tempest. Explores the theory and practice of leadership and statesmanship: ambition, moral character, education for legitimate and just leadership, how to inspire toward noble aims, situational ethics and cultural context. Involves formal sessions of reading and discussion, along with independent scholarship, hikes, and conversation. Coaches students in a leadership lab, focusing on Henry V, by nationally acclaimed speakers that share their deep knowledge and lessons from their careers in Washington and around the globe, plus a costumed performance. Finally, with Henry, Prospero, and Macbeth as profiles in leadership, students write a series of final essays examining the texts carefully, then applying Shakespeare to personal 'character' as an emerging leader.