Former University of Iowa professor Miriam Gilbert, who retired in 2013, is still sharing her expertise of Shakespeare to all generations right from her retirement residence.

Gilbert’s interest in Shakespeare was piqued by a full-year Shakespeare course at the University of Manchester in England. She has instructed for the UI Senior College Program since 2002. These are courses taught by various professionals in their areas of expertise for older adults. 

When she was a first year in college, her father was on sabbatical in Manchester. The university told Gilbert that she couldn’t get a degree because she was just there for a year, so she could take anything she wanted during that time. 

After taking the course designed for third-year students as a first-year, Gilbert was hooked. She then got her undergraduate degree at Brandeis University in English while also working backstage with lighting, sound, and stage management.

She then went to Indiana University to get her Ph.D. in English. She decided to apply to the National Endowment for the Humanities and was successful. The topic of her Ph.D. dissertation was “The Shrew and the Disguised Girl in Shakespeare’s Comedies.” It was clear for Gilbert that this would be an unavoidable passion.

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Gilbert didn’t initially see herself on this path. She always thought she would be a medievalist — an expert in medieval history including literature — as she would have better odds at finding a job in that field.

“A lot of it was an accident, but as I’ve often said, when you fall in love, you fall in love, and that’s it,” Gilbert said.

Teaching at the UI in the English department was Gilbert’s first and only job. She got the job in 1969, after finishing her Ph.D. at Indiana University with a dissertation on Shakespeare and started working at the UI teaching Shakespeare shortly thereafter.

What initially drew Gilbert to the UI was the team-teaching opportunity with the “English semester,” also known as the “literature semester.” This intensive program included 30 students, three teachers in the classroom, 10 hours a week, two hours every day, and counted for 12 credits. 

During her time at the UI, she has taught Shakespeare, drama, teaching methods classes. She was also the coordinator for the Unified Program and worked with people in numerous departments on campus.

However, what characterized her time at Iowa was teaching Shakespeare, drama, and using performance techniques in the classroom. 

Her contributions have not gone unnoticed by the English department at the UI. She was a part of the staff that hired the current chair of the Department of English Blaine Greteman. 

“She’s both enthusiastic about theater and extremely rigorous about it. She has very high standards, and she really does know the works of Shakespeare inside and out,” Greteman said.

However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, Gilbert has been doing classes through the UI’s Senior College on Zoom. The now-online course allows more people to join virtually. Gilbert said over 100 students wanted to join her course. 

This has also transferred into a shift in content availability with Gilbert’s informal discussions of Shakespeare in performance. She now uses Shakespeare performances that are available for free online. In 2020 when lockdown started, the National Theatre of Great Britain decided that it would stream, for free, some of its productions. 

This meant that Gilbert could share links and videos from the theater with her students, allowing for analysis and interpretation on an even deeper level.

Nancy Williams, coordinator of the Senior College courses, attested to Gilbert’s ability.

“Miriam is unflappable, which in the early days of the pandemic when the Senior College turned to Zoom was very much appreciated,” Williams said. “She has built up a very grateful fan base, which now extends literally from coast to coast.”

Teaching has taught Gilbert a lot throughout the years. A valuable lesson she learned is that teaching is not about what I have to say, but it’s about what I can get people to discover for themselves, Gilbert said. 

To do this, she has always aimed to make her students comfortable so that they feel like they can fully explore the topic. Especially with a topic like Shakespeare, Gilbert said, it’s important for everyone to know that it’s okay not to understand everything one reads. That is actually one of the best parts of the process.

The most important thing Gilbert strives for is to get people to tell her what they don’t understand, and then to make it worth their while for them to go looking further. 

“People will have that thrill of discovery when they figure something out, and then it’s my job to complicate it a bit more and say, ‘Is there anything else? Could one read that differently?’” Gilbert said.