Shaina Trapedo

When I began pursuing​ my doctorate in English from the University of California, Irvine, where I specialized in Renaissance literature and culture, I had two children under three and welcomed a third along the way and a fourth after filing. Somewhere between breast pumping in campus bathrooms and reading The Human Condition aloud to get my daughter to sleep, I became increasingly aware of how my role as a parent shaped my pedagogical ethos, and how my role as a teacher influenced my parenting style—and how both states of being are moving targets. I plan to use this blog to write about—and in so doing, think through-- the “issue-isms” of parenting, teaching, and being. Forthcoming posts will explore the pedagogy of playing (with a shameless pun on “playing” in the theatrical and youthful sense, as well as a nod to both Shakespeare and Louis Montrose) and the importance of modeling skills to shape understanding whether at the dinner table or seminar table.