Julie Schumacher on The Shakespeare Requirement

Should college students be required to study Shakespeare? As American universities examine the role of the liberal arts and humanities in our society, what will—and what should—happen to the Bard’s place in English curricula? The Shakespeare Requirement, novelist (and creative writing professor) Julie Schumacher’s new academic satire, asks just that. Jason Fitger, hero of Julie Schumacher’s 2014 novel Dear Committee Members, returns in her new book. The tactless and ineffective Fitger is now chair of the fictional Payne University’s English department, and he’s been tasked with marshaling the department’s faculty to approve a new Statement of Vision. One obstacle is Dennis Cassovan, the department’s elderly Shakespeare scholar, who insists that the Statement include a required semester of Shakespeare. Hanging in the balance? The English department’s annual budget and its home in Willard Hall’s crumbling basement. Julie Schumacher is a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota. Her novel Dear Committee Members, won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. The New Yorker called it “a comic aria of crankiness, disillusionment, and futility.” Her new novel, The Shakespeare Requirement, was published by Doubleday in 2018. She is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. From the Folger’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Published November 13, 2018. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, ““Mark the Manner of His Teaching,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Paul Luke at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California, and Randy Johnson and Steve Griffith at Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul.