The Hidden History of \u27Oklahoma!\u27

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner explains that contemporary reinterpretations of the classic American musical Oklahoma! may be getting back to its root: it\u27s based on a play by a gay Cherokee man

My Grandfather Was an Illegal Immigrant: Guest Opinion

In this opinion piece originally published in the Oregonian, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reflects on his grandfather\u27s immigration status in light of the Trump administration\u27s decision to end temporary protection for 200,000 Salvadoran immigrants who came to the United States without documentation

Summer of Shrew, Part 3: A Sly Conceit

In the third of a four-part series on Shakespeare\u27s The Taming of the Shrew, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner asks, what if Kate’s story isn’t the play’s only reality? Pollack-Pelzner explores how a drunken beggar and an earlier version of the script shift the brawling balances of the play and call into question who the real shrew is

Summer of Shrew, Part 2: Tamed? Really?

In the second of a four-part series on Shakespeare\u27s The Taming of the Shrew, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner argues that Shakespeare’s play raises challenging questions about the way we define gender roles, and the answers aren’t as obvious as they might seem

\u27Another Key\u27 to Act Five of \u3cem\u3eA Midsummer Night’s Dream\u3c/em\u3e

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner offers evidence as to why editors might choose to assign speeches in Act Five of Shakespeare\u27s A Midsummer Night\u27s Dream either to Philostrate or to Egeus

Inside Portland’s Theatre Scene

English Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner takes advantage of the Portland Campus during a January Term class to give students an inside look at Portland’s vibrant theatre scene – populated with a number of Linfield alumni

Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century; Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reviews Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century (edited by Gail Marshall) and Shakespeare, Time and the Victorians: A Pictorial Exploration (by Stuart Sillars) for Victorian Studies

Lin-Manuel Meets \u3cem\u3eMoana\u3c/em\u3e

In this article originally published in Public Books, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders whether a Disney musical and a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical want the same thing

Quoting Shakespeare in the British Novel from Dickens to Wodehouse

Novelists heralded as Victorian Shakespeares frequently navigated the varied nineteenth-century practices of Shakespeare quotation (in the classroom in compilation books, in stage spoofs) to construct the relationship between narrator and character, and to negotiate the dialogue between Shakespeare\u27s voice and the voice of the novel. This chapter looks at three novelists whose practices intersect and contrast: George Eliot, who resists the Bardolatrous imputation of a Shakespearean character\u27s wisdom to its author by distinguishing her own characters\u27 inept Shakespeare quotations from her narrative voice; Thomas Hardy, who claims the authority of Shakespearean pastoral, regional language against the glib quotations of his more cosmopolitan characters; and a latter-day Victorian, P.G. Wodehouse, who plays the irreverent, defamiliarising gambits of Victorian Shakespeare burlesques against the educational and commonplace authority that Shakespeare quotations accrue

Summer of Shrew, Part 4: Which End’s Up?

In the last of a four-part series on Shakespeare\u27s The Taming of the Shrew, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner explores how expanding the range of the titular Shrew to include male characters is actually a return to its original meaning. Pollack-Pelzner focuses on a long-forgotten Renaissance sequel to Shrew (John Fletcher\u27s The Tamer Tamed) that takes the taming of men even further and turns its gender roles upside down