Office: Mark Hopkins 103-C
Fall 2008 Office Hours: M 12-1; T 11-12;
W 5-5:30 pm; TH 8:30-9:15 am & 2-2:30 
and by appointment.
Phone: 662-5195

Ph.D., State University of New York-Albany
M.A., College of St. Rose
B.A., College of St. Rose

Areas of Teaching, Scholarship, & Special Projects: Medieval and Early Modern/Renaissance British literature and interdisciplinary arts and culture; literary theory; literature in performance, life-writing.

Courses 2006-2009: William Shakespeare; Advanced Shakespeare; British Literary Survey; Critical Reading; The Age of Milton; Medieval & Renaissance English Drama; The Age of Chaucer; The Novel; Arts of Medieval & Renaissance Britain; Senior Seminar: Early Modern Life-Writing

Through my work I can communicate the joy and solace found in the narrative of the past. I believe that--across time and space and all that divides people--there are human expressions that transcend these divisions, or at least make them comprehensible, in ways that illuminate something of the human experience. We can’t access the past without understanding history and culture, so the study of context is vital. Ultimately, it’s all about human stories: complex, interwoven, changing, repeating . . . a continuum.

My classes are active and discussion-oriented. Students ask questions and actively seek answers both independently and as part of a community of learners. Over the years, the small-school environment of MCLA has consistently maximized my ability to help students achieve success and to take away something lasting for their continued use and benefit. My students explore literary studies in ways they might not have experienced before--experimenting with literature in performance; learning the arts and culture of Britain “live” through the Arts of Medieval and Renaissance Britain travel course; collaborating in projects such as the Margaret Cavendish Performance Project with Prof. Gweno Williams at the College of York-St. John, UK and with master teachers at Shakespeare’s Globe; and using technology in a student-designed class website for the Arts of Medieval and Renaissance Britain course and the production of videotaped literature-in-performance programs.

Prof. Denhard and students from the Arts of Medieval & Renaissance Britain study group at Westminster Abbey, London, Spring 2006

The best moment of my 2005-2006 academic year occurred in May when I was honored as the recipient of the Senior Class Faculty Appreciation Award at the Baccalaureate ceremony. Other highlights of the past academic year included Spring 2006 travel to England as part of my Arts of Medieval and Renaissance Britain course and the April 2006 performance of the Shakespeare Sonnet Performance project in Venable Theatre, in which I directed a student cast. In the 2006-2007 academic year, my Advanced Shakespeare class students introduced Shakespeare’s sonnets and Romeo and Juliet to eighth graders at Pine Cobble School in Williamstown. Our project was the subject of an article in The Berkshire Eagle and is part of a film project with Rob Wedge (’07) documenting my work in teaching through performance. “Extras” such as these projects and events such as Advanced Shakespeare’s November field trip to see a professional production of Romeo and Juliet are the sort of engaged and “hands on” collaborative learning that is so rewarding for students and also opens new insights for me into teaching and learning.

MCLA Advanced Shakespeare students & students from Pine Cobble School

As a teaching scholar, I value continued research and collaboration. In November, 2006 I participated in the Attending to Early Modern Women Symposium at the Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, University of Maryland at College Park with a workshop “Early Modern Education: (Men) Teaching Women in Europe and the New World” in collaboration with Deborah Uman of St. John Fisher College and Belen Bistue of University of California-Davis. In July, 2005 I traveled to the UK to present my paper “Bathsua Makin’s Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen and the Writing of Four Early Modern Women” as a part of a panel on critical and pedagogical approaches to the writing of “professional” women writers of the 17th century at the “Still Kissing the Rod?” Conference on Early Modern Women’s Writing at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University. Most recently, in July, 2007 I presented a paper and video project featuring classroom and performance work with MCLA students at the Margaret Cavendish Conference at Sheffield University, UK. At home on the MCLA campus, my presentation, “‘Out Loud and On Your Feet’: An Approach to Studying Shakespeare,” premiering the rough cut of my documentary film project on teaching Shakespeare through performance was part of the Brown Bag Faculty Lecture Series in April 2007. A short essay co-authored with Gweno K. Williams, “Drama by Early Modern Women: Text into Performance,” a summary of our workshop, was published in Structures and Subjectivities: Attending to Early Modern Women 2003, co-edited by Adele Seef and Joan Hartman by University of Delaware Press in 2007.

Prof. Denhard at Trafalgar Square, London

Travel Course: Arts of Med/Ren. Britain
Send e-mail to Prof. Denhard