What if universities required their teachers to demonstrate the same breadth demanded of students? Imagine two professors from departments as different as Mathematics and English pairing up to teach a joint course. Infused with theatrical energy, Suri and Osherow share their experiences doing precisely this co-teaching a seminar that combined their seemingly incompatible disciplines. In a multimedia presentation incorporating a range of voices and perspectives, these unlikely collaborators struggle with dueling loyalties, suspicious colleagues, nonplussed students and questioning outsiders. The two will explore topics braved in and beyond their classroom as they moved outside their comfort zones to negotiate common ground between mathematics and the humanities.
Michele Osherow
Michele Osherow is Associate Professor of English and Director of Judaic Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Her research attends to literature of the English Renaissance and the early modern Bible; she published Biblical Women's Voices in Early Modern England (2009), and numerous articles on Shakespeare and similar topics. Osherow has extensive experience in professional theatre and is Resident Dramaturg for the Folger Theatre in Washington D.C. She has also served several times as Executive Director of the Shakespeare Association of America. Manil Suri (Math) University of Maryland Baltimore County
Manil Suri
Manil Suri is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. His field of research is numerical analysis. He has participated in various mathematics outreach efforts, including a collaboration with Michele Osherow on the DC Folger Theatres production of Arcadia. He is the author of the three novels, The Death of Vishnu (2001), The Age of Shiva (2008) and The City of Devi (2013).
St. Jerome's University
University of Waterloo, Faculty of Arts
University of Waterloo, Faculty of Mathematics