Along the same lines as my post about Dr. Shields, here's a post about Dr. Michele Osherow, another one of the most fabulous professors here. I don't imagine that Dr. Osherow remembers this, but she was actually one of the first professors I ever had at UMBC. During honors orientation, they have the students attend artificial classes to get a feeling for what the campus is like, and what the professors are like. I attended the Shakespeare class with Dr. Osherow. She began the class with a short summary of the time period in which Shakespeare was writing, to give us some context about his plays, told us a little bit about the thought process behind staging a Shakespeare play (since, in addition to UMBC, she's the resident dramaturg at the Folger) and ended by asking us to break into teams and act our various scenes from Macbeth. I loved that first false class, not only because I love Shakespeare, but because I was completely amazed by someone as dedicated to literature and as intelligent as Dr. Osherow.
This past semester, I had the great pleasure of taking Dr. Osherow's course, The Bible as Literature (ENGL 349, if you're interested). She had some fascinating insights, and I adored taking a class with her. As an English Lit. minor, I think my new philosophy for taking English classes is going to be 'follow Dr. Osherow', because I know she's amazing. I also, happily, got to see a play she was helping with at the Folger. Because of Dr. Osherow (and being in the Honors College) I was able to attend the dress rehearsal for Othello last spring, and to meet the director of the production and hear some of his thoughts. It was an absolutely fantastic experience.
link to UMBC profile:
http://www.umbc.edu/english/fac_mosherow.html
link to work at Folger:
http://www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=3216
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