Navigating the common ground between Camille Paglia and Alice Horning: Sixties-style guerilla theatre or the ‘The Wow Technique’?
'What kind of fucking stupid teaching is this - pardon my language - where you have these Shakespeare courses at Harvard, with 800 people sitting there and somebody comes out and reads a lecture that they've read every year for the past decade? Is that teaching? That's not teaching, that's wasting everybody's time. Teaching is improv!' (Camille Paglia qtd. in Rodden 162)
In a provocative interview with John Rodden, published in Text and Performance Quarterly in 1996, Camille Paglia not only describes herself as a ‘performing artist-intellectual’, but throws down the gauntlet calling for a new breed of teachers like herself, who might approach teaching in ‘the Sixties style of guerrilla theatre’, and share her mission: ‘to create young rebels’ unafraid to ‘upset the academic apple cart’ (171). Rodden describes Paglia’s physical, at times abrasive approach as a ‘body-centered pedagogy, what might be termed her “melodidactics” of an academic-intellectual performance’ (162); according to Paglia, even the prose she uses in her lectures is ‘muscular and physical’, it is meant to be felt as much as heard—as she says, ‘It tries to work on the emotions and the body’:
'My sentences are curt, there’s no qualifying or subordinate clauses. There is no doubt that I try to hit, hit, hit the reader with the rhythms of rock, the way that Keith Richards does. He’s my idol. I’m coming at you like he is. And that’s also why I’m popular, because there is no bullshit. I’m right out there. I just let it all hang out in the Sixties way.' (Rodden 163)
While Paglia might appear to be on the extreme end of the spectrum as far her approach to teaching as performance (rock-n-roll and guerrilla theatre) and her desired learning outcome (anarchy and rebellion within academia), a closer look at her improv-centered pedagogy in fact has much to inform contemporary teaching practices. Moreover, her teaching philosophy has many similarities to that of Alice S. Horning, whose article ‘Teaching as Performance’ was published nearly two decades previous, in 1979. In contrast to Paglia, Horning might be seen as occupying the more conservative end of the spectrum, her primly outlined ideas expressed in the decidedly un-rock-n-roll Journal of General Education—and yet point for point, Paglia and Horning sound eerie echoes of each other.
For Paglia, defining her pedagogical style as improv means that she approaches every classroom as ‘a living breathing thing’, ‘a creative thing’, which ‘has a mood that might be different every time one enters it’ (164). For this reason, Paglia abhors what she refers to as ‘the pre-fabricated lesson plan’; as she sees it, during a given class, students might be strongly compelled to study something from another point in the syllabus—and Paglia is adamant that this should be honoured (164). Her taking of cues from the students is much like an actor or comedian who feeds off their audience—are they hostile or welcoming? What if they start heckling? Thus, it should come as no surprise that Paglia cites the comedian Lenny Bruce as an inspiration for how she conducts her lessons (164).
'Teachers should be taught how to read a crowd, how to adapt, how to be fluid… You've got a plan, but hey!—you've got to be ready, at all times, to react. If the game plan's not working, you make adjustments.' (Paglia qtd. in Rodden 165)
In terms of performance, she also highlights her practice of creating a character—‘I’m very aware that audiences love a character. And I’m a character—a very amusing character’ (Rodden 164). Similarly, she warms up before each lecture and/or seminar so that she might be best equipped to give her students her all—for it is her belief that a teacher has the power to transform a classroom through their energy—indeed, these are the teachers students never forget, who inspire, galvanise and enlighten:
'You’re there as a servant—of the canon, or great art! I view the teacher’s presence as a servant of the material. I’m there to try to make the material come alive, to help the students appreciate these ancient, famous artworks.' (Paglia qtd. in Rodden 164)
Like Paglia, Alice Horning identifies the similarities between teaching and performance and points to the advantages of a performative approach to teaching—but her perspective is considerably less personal; for Horning, what is exciting about the parallel between teaching and performance is the promise it holds as far as identifying ‘a unique and superior set of criteria’ for picking apart the pedagogy of the most successful teachers, towards understanding what it is that makes them so effective. For Horning, the art of performance in teaching is akin to what she refers to ‘the “wow! Technique”. To illustrate this facility, she cites as an example a former teacher of hers who performed a bit of a Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard for the class—a teacher who went so far as to eat a pickle just as the character did, much to the students’ delight— ‘and in doing so, [he] successfully connected teaching and theatrical performance to get [the class] to understand the play’ (185).
She goes on to highlight a set of distinct points at which both teaching and performance intersect, and emphasizes that each might be used to ‘to provide criteria to meet the need for more precise and constructive teaching evaluation’ (186). The areas she identifies include ‘setting, structure, the audience’s position relative to the performer’, as well as ‘backstage’ or ‘behind the scenes’ components such as how the themes of a production might be interpreted and an actor’s individual style and character choices (185). As she points out, ‘Each of these matters of form has its approximate correspondent in an academic situation, and can serve as a criterion for evaluation’ (186). Each of these points bears a closer look:
Setting includes not only the specific point in time at which a play occurs, but also the physical layout of the stage—the set. Similarly, a class has its own context—the type of course (French? Women’s Studies? Modernist Literature?), while the arrangement of the furniture in the classroom also impacts the overall experience of the class.
The structure of a performance usually refers to the plot of a play, while the structure of a class might be a specific lesson plan, which fits into the course syllabus as a whole (taking the analogy further, a lesson plan might be to a syllabus as a scene is to a plot). The audience’s position relative to the performer might translate in the classroom to the literal proximity of a teacher to her students—does she lecture at a podium? Or does she sit with her students in chairs arranged in a circle? The concept of proximity is manifest on another level as well, in terms of how accessible a teacher might be to her students outside of class? Is she a ‘friend’ or does she keep a marked professional distance, avoiding any but the most formal contact outside of class?
Finally, there is the element of character and style—in the same way that an actor slips into character, so too do many teachers adopt a unique persona when they are in class. Certainly Camille Paglia is renowned for her teaching persona—one that is as amusing as it is combative.
Works Cited
Horning, Alice S. ‘Teaching As Performance.’ The Journal of General Education. 31.3 (1979): 185-194. JSTOR. Web. 1st May 2015.
Rodden, J. ‘“Improv Is My Pedagogical Style”: Camille Paglia on Teaching As Performance Art.’ Text and Performance Quarterly. 16.2 (1996): 161-171. Taylor & Francis Online. Web. 1st May 2015.
Navigating the common ground between Camille Paglia and Alice Horning: Sixties-style guerilla theatre or the ‘The Wow Technique’?
'What kind of fucking stupid teaching is this - pardon my language - where you have these Shakespeare courses at Harvard, with 800 people sitting there and somebody comes out and reads a lecture that they've read every year for the past decade? Is that teaching? That's not teaching, that's wasting everybody's time. Teaching is improv!' (Camille Paglia qtd. in Rodden 162)
In a provocative interview with John Rodden, published in Text and Performance Quarterly in 1996, Camille Paglia not only describes herself as a ‘performing artist-intellectual’, but throws down the gauntlet calling for a new breed of teachers like herself, who might approach teaching in ‘the Sixties style of guerrilla theatre’, and share her mission: ‘to create young rebels’ unafraid to ‘upset the academic apple cart’ (171). Rodden describes Paglia’s physical, at times abrasive approach as a ‘body-centered pedagogy, what might be termed her “melodidactics” of an academic-intellectual performance’ (162); according to Paglia, even the prose she uses in her lectures is ‘muscular and physical’, it is meant to be felt as much as heard—as she says, ‘It tries to work on the emotions and the body’:
'My sentences are curt, there’s no qualifying or subordinate clauses. There is no doubt that I try to hit, hit, hit the reader with the rhythms of rock, the way that Keith Richards does. He’s my idol. I’m coming at you like he is. And that’s also why I’m popular, because there is no bullshit. I’m right out there. I just let it all hang out in the Sixties way.' (Rodden 163)
While Paglia might appear to be on the extreme end of the spectrum as far her approach to teaching as performance (rock-n-roll and guerrilla theatre) and her desired learning outcome (anarchy and rebellion within academia), a closer look at her improv-centered pedagogy in fact has much to inform contemporary teaching practices. Moreover, her teaching philosophy has many similarities to that of Alice S. Horning, whose article ‘Teaching as Performance’ was published nearly two decades previous, in 1979. In contrast to Paglia, Horning might be seen as occupying the more conservative end of the spectrum, her primly outlined ideas expressed in the decidedly un-rock-n-roll Journal of General Education—and yet point for point, Paglia and Horning sound eerie echoes of each other.
For Paglia, defining her pedagogical style as improv means that she approaches every classroom as ‘a living breathing thing’, ‘a creative thing’, which ‘has a mood that might be different every time one enters it’ (164). For this reason, Paglia abhors what she refers to as ‘the pre-fabricated lesson plan’; as she sees it, during a given class, students might be strongly compelled to study something from another point in the syllabus—and Paglia is adamant that this should be honoured (164). Her taking of cues from the students is much like an actor or comedian who feeds off their audience—are they hostile or welcoming? What if they start heckling? Thus, it should come as no surprise that Paglia cites the comedian Lenny Bruce as an inspiration for how she conducts her lessons (164).
'Teachers should be taught how to read a crowd, how to adapt, how to be fluid… You've got a plan, but hey!—you've got to be ready, at all times, to react. If the game plan's not working, you make adjustments.' (Paglia qtd. in Rodden 165)
In terms of performance, she also highlights her practice of creating a character—‘I’m very aware that audiences love a character. And I’m a character—a very amusing character’ (Rodden 164). Similarly, she warms up before each lecture and/or seminar so that she might be best equipped to give her students her all—for it is her belief that a teacher has the power to transform a classroom through their energy—indeed, these are the teachers students never forget, who inspire, galvanise and enlighten:
'You’re there as a servant—of the canon, or great art! I view the teacher’s presence as a servant of the material. I’m there to try to make the material come alive, to help the students appreciate these ancient, famous artworks.' (Paglia qtd. in Rodden 164)
Like Paglia, Alice Horning identifies the similarities between teaching and performance and points to the advantages of a performative approach to teaching—but her perspective is considerably less personal; for Horning, what is exciting about the parallel between teaching and performance is the promise it holds as far as identifying ‘a unique and superior set of criteria’ for picking apart the pedagogy of the most successful teachers, towards understanding what it is that makes them so effective.
For Horning, the art of performance in teaching is akin to what she refers to ‘the “wow! Technique”. To illustrate this facility, she cites as an example a former teacher of hers who performed a bit of a Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard for the class—a teacher who went so far as to eat a pickle just as the character did, much to the students’ delight— ‘and in doing so, [he] successfully connected teaching and theatrical performance to get [the class] to understand the play’ (185).
She goes on to highlight a set of distinct points at which both teaching and performance intersect, and emphasizes that each might be used to ‘to provide criteria to meet the need for more precise and constructive teaching evaluation’ (186). The areas she identifies include ‘setting, structure, the audience’s position relative to the performer’, as well as ‘backstage’ or ‘behind the scenes’ components such as how the themes of a production might be interpreted and an actor’s individual style and character choices (185). As she points out, ‘Each of these matters of form has its approximate correspondent in an academic situation, and can serve as a criterion for evaluation’ (186).
Each of these points bears a closer look:
Setting includes not only the specific point in time at which a play occurs, but also the physical layout of the stage—the set. Similarly, a class has its own context—the type of course (French? Women’s Studies? Modernist Literature?), while the arrangement of the furniture in the classroom also impacts the overall experience of the class.
The structure of a performance usually refers to the plot of a play, while the structure of a class might be a specific lesson plan, which fits into the course syllabus as a whole (taking the analogy further, a lesson plan might be to a syllabus as a scene is to a plot).
The audience’s position relative to the performer might translate in the classroom to the literal proximity of a teacher to her students—does she lecture at a podium? Or does she sit with her students in chairs arranged in a circle? The concept of proximity is manifest on another level as well, in terms of how accessible a teacher might be to her students outside of class? Is she a ‘friend’ or does she keep a marked professional distance, avoiding any but the most formal contact outside of class?
Finally, there is the element of character and style—in the same way that an actor slips into character, so too do many teachers adopt a unique persona when they are in class. Certainly Camille Paglia is renowned for her teaching persona—one that is as amusing as it is combative.
Works Cited
Horning, Alice S. ‘Teaching As Performance.’ The Journal of General Education. 31.3 (1979): 185-194. JSTOR. Web. 1st May 2015.
Rodden, J. ‘“Improv Is My Pedagogical Style”: Camille Paglia on Teaching As Performance Art.’ Text and Performance Quarterly. 16.2 (1996): 161-171. Taylor & Francis Online. Web. 1st May 2015.