E9: Shakespeare in STEM | Michelle Ephraim, WPI Professor, Humanities & Arts

WPI—a global leader in project-based learning and a top-tier STEM research university—that’s how it’s often described, and it’s true. But here’s something you might not expect: at WPI, the “S” in STEM doesn’t always stand for Science—sometimes, it stands for Shakespeare! In this episode, we’re diving into how the Bard’s brilliant wordplay, unforgettable characters, and big ideas connect with the same curiosity and creativity that drive science, tech, engineering, and math.

Hi, I'm Colleen Wamback from the Marketing Communications Division at WPI and welcome to this episode of the WPI Podcast. This podcast brings you news and expertise from our classrooms and labs. 

Today we take a fresh look at Shakespeare, with a STEM twist Explained by our guest WPI English Professor Michelle Ephraim.

I’m delighted to be here today with Michelle Ephraim. Michelle, you are a Shakespeare scholar, a WPI professor, an award-winning author, and this is intimidating and exciting for me. You are a podcaster. So we're gonna get into all of that. Let's start from the top.

Your story. Shakespeare scholar at a STEM institution, how did that happen?

Great question. I have a lot of interests and when I was applying and interviewing for this job at WPI many years ago, it was such a great fit because, , I am a Shakespeare scholar, but I also teach creative writing. I'm very interested in speculative fiction, sci-fi, horror fantasy, and this was a school that was interested in all of my interests, and it was a great fit for me to teach a wide range of classes, which was very exciting for me. Very different from a traditional liberal arts school, which tends to be more limited actually in the opportunities that it affords professors.

When did you first fall in love with Shakespeare? 

Well, I was a late bloomer when it came to Shakespeare. I actually talk about this in my memoir that came out last year in 2024 called Green World. I didn't read my first Shakespeare play until graduate school, which was a fact. I kept under wraps for a very long time, probably for obvious reasons. , But I. Kind of came to Shakespeare accidentally. I always assumed he was too hard to read and not relevant to me in any way. And I wasn't that excited about Shakespeare, to be honest. Um, until I learned that I was very excited about Shakespeare.

You touched on something important because a lot of students are introduced to Shakespeare in high school, sophomore, junior year. They don't understand the allegories, they don't understand the speak from many hundred years ago, right? But yet now when they're reintroduced at an older age, a college level age, they're ready for that. But here at WPI, when our students are focused on robotics, biotech, data science. They have a different mindset, many of them. Right? So what is it like for you to reintroduce Shakespeare or introduce Shakespeare to students here at WPI? 

Yeah. You know, I do have a lot of students who are fans of Shakespeare coming in, but I have to say,, I really like working with students who either don't like Shakespeare or think that they can't understand Shakespeare. , That's very exciting for me because I relate to that so much and I know that they can understand Shakespeare. I know that, and maybe they had a bad experience in high school or they just never had the opportunity to learn Shakespeare at all, so we approach Shakespeare in all sorts of ways. But the bottom line is making Shakespeare accessible without compromising the content of Shakespeare. We don't dumb Shakespeare down or, you know, give summaries or things like that. You know, they get into the full on Shakespeare language. They also learned Shakespeare as a visual experience, and Shakespeare wrote his plays to be performed, not to be read. So we do study the text, but we also explore what it means to represent Shakespeare visually, to engage with Shakespeare through performance and to tap into the meanings of Shakespeare, not to let the language however unfamiliar it may. Feel at first. , Actually, students very quickly learn how to handle the language. Okay, there's some different words. There's some different syntax. They learn how to use the Oxford English dictionary. , They learn to love the Oxford English Dictionary actually. We do a lot with that, with words and etymology and research on words. And they love word play and they love how Shakespeare speaks to kind of their deepest issues, which as college students, they have a lot of feelings and they're going through a lot of things. And Shakespeare actually wrote about some of the most important emotional issues that are going on in their lives right now. 

And it's still relevant today? 

Absolutely very relevant. Whether you're talking about relationships between young people first loves, tensions with family members, confusion. About the meaning of the world and what you're gonna do when you grow up. All these things confronting mortality, just existential questions too, which, you know, especially now for our students, having gone through the pandemic, having gone through so many big things at a young age feels especially relevant for this generation, I think.

You bring up a very good point. You were teaching years before the pandemic. Yes. How has your teaching. Shakespeare changed or, has it?

Yeah. One of the things that's very obvious to me in response to that is the course I teach called Infected Shakespeare, and I created that course before the pandemic and. I was actually teaching that course online when we were over Zoom during the beginning of the pandemic. So, it was wild and crazy that we were talking about the spread of disease, specifically the plague, sexually transmitted disease and also depression. Mental illness in Shakespeare's day. So students were all over it. And that class is very much about Shakespeare's plays, but also about other documents published during that time. Medical manuals, all sorts of literature about diseases and theories about how diseases, what causes diseases, how they're spread. So for a lot of my students who are doing heart sciences, , they're very knowledgeable in that field and are naturally curious about the history of medicine. And then to add to that, the immediate relevance of these themes of pandemics, , the socioeconomic issues involved in pandemics, for example, how disease gets blamed on poor people, , and depression and mental illness, all these things so relevant to them. So. This was a course again that I created before the pandemic. And it's one now that has become different because everyone can relate to what it feels like to go through a health crisis like this, whereas prior to 2020. It was, , theoretical. It was an imagined reality. Yeah. It's like you had a crystal ball. Exactly. How, how did the students take to that, especially in the midst of it, you were teaching it online in 2020, right.

Was it upsetting, daunting, liberating to know people have gone through this?

I can't summarize, of course, what all of them felt, and I'm sure they were all feeling different things. But what I noticed was real excitement at their discoveries. You know, that they were in real time discovering that the things they were going through were uncannily similar to what people in 16th and 17th century England were going through. So they were kind of learning something about the human condition that was incredibly important.

And you're continuing this course, correct?

Yes, yes. I still teach this course and will be doing so, uh, forever. I dunno. I love it.

I love the course and,, students really seem to love it as well, so it's wonderful. You and the students love Shakespeare in the plagues, right? Exactly. Exactly. When you're talking about some real difficult issues, but in an academic setting, and it's all wrapped up in the research and the intellectual work of what's going on in the classroom, it's really exciting and they feel like they can bring a lot to it. Like they know what it feels like to struggle. They know what it feels like to be lonely. I mean, there are young people who are off to college and that's always hard. So I think to have the chance to talk about that and also, show them how their experiences actually gives them a special insight into the material that we're studying. I think feels very empowering for them too.

 Yeah. Talk to me a little bit about that. How did they relate? And are there any lessons, examples of solving complex problems with an engineering mindset?

Well, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is actually my own use of language, which I think of as separate from. The engineers at this school, because I naturally think of literature as something that's built well. And that's the language that I use often to talk to students about literature. How are these things built, whether you're talking about, say, IIC pentameter in Shakespeare's plays, or the careful selection. Of imagery and how imagery works in certain ways or wordplay, , the selection of a particular word that works at that particular moment to convey a particular meaning or a couple of different meanings and how everything fits together in a certain way. I think that. A great piece of literature is a structure that is well built. And again, I have that metaphor naturally in my head maybe 'cause my dad was an engineer. I dunno. It's in my gene somehow, but I do feel like students can understand that and I do feel like that's an important insight to have when looking at a piece of literature.

That's a great insight. I, we've talked so many times and I know your story, but I didn't realize the engineering aspect that you have in your family. Being able to, adapt that it’s no wonder why students relate to you so. Well, speaking about students relating, coming out of five years now since, COVID times and a lot has changed, so has technology and our students, not just our students, but to this age group across the board-TikTok Chat, GPT- they want things now. They want things fast and short. So how does Shakespeare fit in with that demand? 

You know, I am, I'm a real purist, I have to say very old school. I, you know, believe in sort of. Close reading, which takes time and patience to me being in, in my classroom is maybe pushing back against all that immediacy. I'm definitely trying to get students to spend time and to spend their time carefully looking carefully at words, for example, considering something very closely. We do a lot of writing and revising. So you can't just write something and turn it in, you have to revise it. You have to talk about the revisions you made and why you have to reflect on everything that you're doing in the classroom. So I do feel like. What's happening in my classroom is pushing back against that. But at the same time, I respect that this is a different generation, and we all think about things differently. In one of my classes, I have students writing sonnets. So we talk about the short form of the sonnet, because at the end of the day, there's always been interest and attraction to things that are short for various reasons. It's not just TikTok. So even though it's not a visual text, it is a short form poem and we talk a lot about why you would write something as a sonnet, for example. Why just 14 lines? Why not go on longer? What is liberating about having only 14 lines to get through and it can deliver a particular punch in a certain way, that people are very attracted to. That's very appealing. So there are some connections as well with the past. ChatGPT- Should I get into that? Oh, we're both nodding because I think we knew that was gonna come up. One of the things that I want to prioritize is learning as much about ChatGPT as I can. I want my students to be doing all of their own work, everything to be done using their brains. First and foremost, I am open to thinking about how chat GBT can help us all become more efficient, but it absolutely cannot replace. The human-to-human interaction that's happening between people and also the human to text interaction that's happening. I read all of my students' work, I comment on it all myself. I have to have a relationship with the words that they're writing. I want them to have a personal relationship with the words that they're writing. And in my classes it's also an open conversation about what's okay and what's not okay. So yeah, it's a work in progress.

Yeah, I think many, many people can say that, whether there are a faculty member here, a manager here. I'm gonna date myself a little bit, but is it somewhat on the lines of Cliff Notes? Back when I was reading, first reading Shakespeare that I knew some people. I was not one of them that would. No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Some people would just read the cliff notes of Romeo and Juliette or MacBeth. Others would use it to make sure they understood. Yeah. What was being explained or what was being, talked about for sure in a certain play. Could chat GPT for Shakespeare or various other areas offer help for a student to better understand the content?

My old school self is saying, I don't think we need ChatGPT for students to have more comprehension help with their Shakespeare studies. There are a lot of things already available online for students to say, fact check in terms of plot, you know, what exactly happened there? Uh, is Juliet dead at that point or not? You know? Okay. No. Got it. I think that's really helpful and some plays have really difficult bits in terms of what's happening with the plot. I think that if students were seeing the plays live. They would get it immediately. But sometimes just reading the text, you want some verification for exactly what happened. So I think as long as these things are not replacing the reading of a play. Because it's hard to read a play. It requires a lot of concentration and focus, and I'm a fan of concentration and focus. So I think when you learn how to read poetry, what you're learning is how to focus on all kinds of texts, how to read any text closely.

I'm going to segue now away from Shakespeare. Let's hear more about what you've worked on, what you're working on, what you're so proud of in your professional life?

Well, this is always gonna come back to Shakespeare, of course, but I guess, there's two hats that I wear at WPI. There's the creative writing hat and the Shakespeare hat, and sometimes I wear both hats at once. Or maybe that's not a great metaphor 'cause that doesn't sound like a good look. But in any case, um, a hat and a tie. Exactly. A hat with a really nice feather in it. A lot of the writing I've done on Shakespeare, I've done a lot of traditional academic writing that other academics read, and I'm very proud of that. Actually, I have an article coming out in a book next year on the first lottery that was held in Elizabethan England and Queen Elizabeth's desperation for funds that led her to give the okay to this lottery. So I have an article coming out on that. It's super nerdy. Loved it. I really enjoy writing about Shakespeare for a wide audience, though. And that means anyone making Shakespeare funny, making Shakespeare relevant, , teaching people about Shakespeare in a way that's very fun. I've written some humor pieces about Shakespeare. I have a partner in crime, Caroline Bicks, who's a professor at University of Maine, and she and I have co-authored a number of things together from humor pieces on McSweeney's internet tendency to a literary humor book called Shakespeare, not Stirred Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas. But I've also written about Shakespeare very seriously for the general public. Many years ago, I wrote a piece about my father's death and about how that experience changed the way I looked at Shakespeare and changed the way that I taught Shakespeare, thinking about children who lost their parents, and the kind of effect it has on them. That was published in the Washington Post and republished actually in newspapers all across the world. I got an enormous number of emails from people about that piece. People who knew nothing about Shakespeare and frankly didn't care about Shakespeare, but were really appreciative about how my discussion of Shakespeare captured their own experiences of grief. That essay inspired a book I wrote that came out last year, about my family , and the influence of Shakespeare on my life. So I get a lot of pleasure in writing about Shakespeare for a general audience. That's probably my greatest love.

You touched on the passion project. Green World. Yeah. And congratulations. I know it's been nominated and has won several awards, so yes. Thank you. Very exciting. Really, really, I mean, wonderful work and the fact that people you've never even met, reach out to you and know that through you, through Shakespeare, you were able to bring some solace or understanding. Just another congratulations. 

Thank you. That's well put. And I appreciate that. Thank you. 

When we first met when you were on the road with Shakespeare not stirred. One of my first assignments here at WPI to write a press release about that, which I just loved because here I thought I took a job at a STEM institution and it just showed the power of the arts and humanities here. But that is part of your overall, I guess, genre of everyday Shakespeare. Right. And. You have a podcast Yes. Called Everyday Shakespeare. Yep. I love that as well because again, we're talking about heavy writing in the classroom, but you can really relate to Shakespeare and for those that are listening and haven't seen the icon with that, I love it, it's the barn holding a bag of groceries. So are you continually amazed at the everyday things that Shakespeare, his writings, his plays touch on.  

Yeah. And it's really fun. I feel like my students enlighten me a lot to that, especially when we're talking about, well I shouldn't say especially 'cause there's lots of themes that they're very interested in, but one for sure is relationships. Between friends, and also romantic relationships. So that will come up a lot, , in the plays that we talk about. A lot of Shakespeare's plays are about those relationships and yeah, they're very interested, especially at this time of their lives, when they're navigating these very intense relationships and making these new friends in college and having some new experiences, first big experiences of various types of things. And I think that Shakespeare gets into so many of the complex, difficult, painful, awkward things about those kinds of relationships, and they have a lot of insight about them. So I'm often learning a lot through my students actually, What's a ship and who in Shakespeare has one? What does that mean? Yeah. So, you know, I'm learning about the new ways in which. Young people are having relationships and talking about relationships through Shakespeare as well.

 Romeo and Juliet could still be alive if they could have just texted each other. 

Exactly. Yes. We bring up that point a lot. It's so frustrating. There's all these ways in which students are imagining and re-imagining Shakespeare from a modern perspective. And that's where Contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare's plays come in as well. We're often looking at different scenes or talking about new productions, whether on stage or on television or film that have different ideas about how to craft characters. So that's very interesting. 

Yeah, I just had a flashback to, do you remember that show Moonlighting with Bruce Willis? Yes. They had a Taming of the Shrew episode. Oh yes. I will find that and send that to you. That's excellent. I'd like to see that and I. I don't think I ever read Taming of the Shrew, but I know it quite well because of Bruce Willis and Sybil Shepherd.

I love those, those teen movies that, uh, take on Shakespeare. I think there's so much fun, um, and students have a lot of opinions about it, you know, what does it mean to, um. You know, turn Othello into a prep school drama, like the movie O does. You know, what does that do with modern issues about race and how teenagers are understanding their romantic and sexual relationships. So they have a lot of opinions about that, and I'm really interested in hearing about their opinions.

I don't wanna pinpoint you, on what your favorite. Shakespeare work is. Mm-hmm. Unless you have one. But as you're sitting here today, what is one that you relate the most to? Hmm. It's almost an impossible question to answer 'cause I almost feel like there's scenes and there's lines and there's different characters and different plays.  And it changes too. I think that the answer should probably be the Merchant of Venice, since that's what I've written a lot about and I relate very much to the character of Jessica. However, it's also the play the Winter's Tale, which I adore. And one of the main characters is a mother figure and I'm a mom. And that's a big part of my identity and I think that. Play is very much about being a parent. And so I enjoy that play a lot. , I think it's, it's a very profound play about the experience of parenthood.

With all of your knowledge, do you go back and reread some of these works and relate to them in a different way as the years go on?

Absolutely. That's one of the most fun things about teaching Shakespeare is that, you know, I reread plays. I reread plays every time I teach them. I'm always learning something new and maybe noticing a word or something I didn't notice before, but I'm also having a different perspective on things and that different perspective comes from events that are going on around me in the world, definitely, but also things that are going on personally. And I think that's the case for all of my students as well. And I do get them talking about that a lot. We do a lot of relating, of current events to Shakespeare's plays, what does it mean to look at this characterization of this particular political character. I do a good job, I will say, of not showing my hand in terms of my own particular political beliefs, but I find that it doesn't matter because there are general themes that come up. Politics, for example, has always been about performance. It doesn't matter which politician you're talking about. So when we look at how Shakespeare's kings are represented, whoever they are, he's making it clear that to be a good politician, you have to be a good performer. You have to be a good actor. We talk about how political debates that they watch on TV are always evaluated using words like. How well did they perform? How did they pivot? It's all about the optics of things. Again, it doesn't matter what your particular political views are, but to kind of understand the operation of politics more broadly is an example of that. So it can be things that are going on out in the world, but also things that are going on very personally for students. I had a student recently write a sonnet about something very personal that happened to her, and she told me that it felt incredibly therapeutic to write that sonnet, which was actually a fantastic sonnet.

That's great. I'm gonna stick with the politics theme, but don't be scared. Okay. As we wrap up, I am going to have you give your closing argument stump speech to revisit Shakespeare.

Right. Shakespeare is. Giving you an invaluable cultural currency. Shakespeare is sending you out in the world able to have thoughtful, profound conversations with people in every type of profession, whether they're in the arts or not in the arts, because there are many fans of literature and theater out there. Shakespeare is also a way to understand how the world. Works in terms of politics and in terms of individual people and their emotional landscapes.

Perfect. You have my vote. Excellent. Shakespeare, Michelle, this was absolutely wonderful. We could go on and on. You gave me a lot to think about and hopefully our listeners as well, So thank you again. 

Thank you so much for having me.

This has been the WPI podcast. You can learn more about some of the great things our students are doing, our academic programs, plus clubs and organizations that help round out the campus experience on our website wpi.edu. You can hear more episodes of this podcast and more podcasts like this one at wpi.edu/listen. There, you can also find audio versions of stories about our students, faculty and staff, everything from events to research. You can also check out the latest WPI news on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to open WPI. This podcast was produced at the WPI Global Lab in the Innovation Studio. Tune in next time for another episode of the WPI podcast. I'm Colleen Wamback