Shakespeare's Relevance

There aren't many people in the world who are as passionate about what we can learn from Shakespeare as Jessica Riddell. She bubbles over with excitement and enthusiasm for the 'dead white guys' she spends her time talking and teaching about as an academic and educator. Jessica uses Shakespeare and other early modern writers as guides to understand the messy, challenging problems we see every day in the world, and believes deeply that we can learn a lot about how to engage with these challenges through exploring these great literary and theatrical works.

As well as being a Professor of Early Modern Literature at Bishop's University, Canada, Jessica Riddell is a runner, a parent and a passionate educator. In 2015, she was awarded the 3M National Teaching Fellowship -- the highest recognition in Canada for educational leadership -- as well as the Jarislowsky Chairship for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence.

Dr Lisa Dickson specializes in Renaissance Literature (especially Shakespeare and tragic drama), Literary Theory, and teaching and learning in Higher Education. She is a 3M National Teaching Fellow and founding project lead for the 3M NTF Mentoring Network.

In her research, service and teaching, she explores the concepts of critical hope and empathy and seeks to build learning environments, both within her own classrooms and in Higher Education as a whole. Her current project is a book about Shakespeare and Critical Hope, a collaborative endeavour with her fellow 3M National Teaching Fellows, Dr Shannon Murray and Dr Jessica Riddell.

She and her collaborators also produce a podcast, Wyrd Words: Conversations about Literature and Learning in Higher Education and manage thewyrdhouse.com, a website that includes the podcast, the Wyrd Words blog and resources on Early Modern Literature, and Teaching and Learning.

Dr Shannon Murray is a professor and 3M National Teaching Fellow, teaching Early Modern and Children’s literature at the University of Prince Edward Island. She gives workshops and talks on active learning, capstone courses for art majors, global experience courses, learning communities, and teaching dossiers, including since 2002 for the Faculty Development Summer Institute on Active Learning.

As the founding editor of The Recorder, she has published on Bunyan’s Book for Boys and Girls, on adaptations for children, as well as on the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is the vice-president of the International John Bunyan Society, a former coordinator of the 3M National Teaching Fellowship, and the former Director of UPEI’s Teaching and Learning Centre. Along with her collaborators Dr Lisa Dickson and Dr Jessica Riddell, she is completing a book project for the University of Toronto Press on Shakespeare, Hope, and Empathy.

Prof. Fathali M. Moghaddam was born in Iran, educated from an early age in England, and returned to Iran with the revolution in 1979. He was researching and teaching in Iran during the hostage crisis and the first three years of the Iran-Iraq War.

After working for the United Nations, Prof. Moghaddam researched and taught at McGill University; served as Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Cognitive Science, and today he's both a professor of Psychology at Georgetown University, and the editor-in-chief of Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology.

He has published about 30 books and 300 papers, and received a number of prestigious academic awards. His most recent book is Shakespeare and the Experimental Psychologist.