Preparing graduate students to teach: The role of literature faculty

Abstract

This chapter discusses how faculty who work and teach in literary/ cultural studies can contribute to training graduate students in teaching at the upper levels. Beginning with some ideas about how the various, usually separate, aspects of graduate education “in literature” can begin to be placed in a more productive dialogue, the chapter then focuses on ways in which graduate literature seminars can directly dialogue with teaching. After considering key textual or contextual questions around a given author, theme, or period over the course of a semester, faculty could invite graduate students to think about how those “research” questions can be adapted to the undergraduate classroom. As a representative case study, the author draws upon his own experiences teaching graduate seminars in Renaissance French literature.