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Abstract
In this study, the author examines the learning experiences of undergraduates from a large university in the Southeastern United States enrolled in a seven-week study abroad program held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom focusing on Shakespeare and performance. The study is organized into a manuscript style format. In the first manuscript, the author examines Deleuze and Guattaris concept of the rhizome as an analytic tool for conducting a literature review on Shakespearean pedagogy. The article crafts a linear tracing of the discourses in practitioner-based journal articles and then rhizomatically maps textual connections and linkages in the form of a dramatic play. A discussion of the connection between Deleuze and Guattaris discussions of pedagogy and teaching Shakespeare as well as a brief examination of the implications for using rhizoanalysis as an approach to the literature review concludes the article. In the second manuscript, the author examines participants learning experiences in one three-hour workshop that focused on the close reading of Shakespearean texts as it offered a unique opportunity to investigate how performance and exploration could invoke moments of change and transformation. Thinking with Deleuzes concept of becoming and Deleuze and Guattaris concept of the rhizome, the author uses rhizoanalysis to map participants learning experiences as a form of movementnot as a point of arrival but as a continuous process of change and difference. The rhizoanalysis takes the form of a layered text crafted into three specific moments of experimentation and becoming that illustrate the connecting relations that came together in the research assemblage. In the third manuscript, the author examines how participants used cue script acting and collaborative writing as collective methods of engaging with Shakespeare. Introduced to students in an Oxford tutorial session, cue script acting is an early modern theatrical practice used in the study as a performance-based method of teaching Shakespeare. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattaris concept of the nomad and St. Pierres concept of nomadic inquiry, the author makes connections between these methods, arguing that cue script acting is a form of collaborative writing as inquiry.