The Words, May 2015

A Farewell to Professor Krier

By Amanda Zimmerman ‘16

“The wiser, the waywarder,” says Rosalind in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. For Professor Theresa Krier, these are words to live by.

Professor Krier is retiring from teaching at the end of this semester. She has been at Macalester since 2003, and she taught at Notre Dame for twenty years before that. When Krier left a large university to come teach at a small liberal arts college, she made an atypical career transition for a professor. This wayward trajectory has brought happiness as well as challenges. Krier has enjoyed her time at Macalester, and is pleased to say that “this has been my hardest teaching job.” Much of the difficulty stems from her students, who “are so creative that they’re difficult to keep up with.” They have also inspired her – Krier keeps some of the most compelling student papers she’s received so that she can refer to them later.

Although Krier has taught many classes at Macalester, The Literary Bible has been among her favorites. This course, developed by Krier, covered the King James Bible as a literary text. Professor Krier also loves to teach works like Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Students’ enthusiasm for these texts has resulted in great discussions. She is also excited about teaching Ursula Le Guin’s novel Tehanu for the first time this semester in her Heroic Narratives class.

Krier’s own essays and books often focus on the same texts that she enjoys teaching in class. Additionally, Krier says “feminism saved my life,” and that it has informed much of her scholarship. For example, women-centric topics like maternity and goddesses show up frequently in her work. “Who wouldn’t love to write about goddesses?” she asks.

Krier also loves making creative syllabi, so her classes are full of engaging projects. For example, her Shakespeare students act out scenes from the plays they read. Once she had a class read two sonnets, one by John Keats and one by Leigh Hunt, who had challenged each other to a writing competition. Krier continued the contest by having students debate which sonnet was better. Sometimes she would have students identify a particularly weird fact from a piece of literature and challenge them to come up with the most outrageous thesis to explain that fact, an activity which resulted in some truly imaginative thinking.

Occasionally these creative assignments served purposes beyond the academic. For example, Shakespeare’s insults have helped dispel tensions that have arisen in her courses. During one class, Professor Krier grew frustrated and ended the discussion early when it became clear that her students hadn’t read the assignment. The next time they met, Krier had the students shout Shakespearean insults at one another and at her as a way of letting out frustration and regaining class cohesion.

Professor Krier’s life and career have taken many turns which, in her opinion, is a great way to live. Her last advice to everyone is to embrace being wayward.