I didn’t plan to become a university educator. I wanted to do the thing. To write the book, to play the music, to dance onstage, to research the politics. My students are the ones who taught me how much teaching matters to me. When I step into the classroom, all else exits. We begin to learn, together.
I offer a broad folio of undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on the effects of performance as human-centered action in particular social spaces, processes, and structures.
My courses introduce students to critical approaches and creative techniques for analyzing cultural production and social life worldwide.
My teaching philosophy privileges situated, embodied, inclusive, and collaborative modes of learning and teaching in which students are active producers of meaning.
NEW WORKSHOP AVAILABLE FOR COMMUNITY AND UNIVERSITY GROUPS!
DABKE STORIES is a facilitated participatory workshop for everyone — from first-time to skilled dabke dancers. First offered at Arizona State University, it connects movement and narrative to individual lived experience to unlock our untold stories of what dabke means for each and all of us.
Participants praised how it “provided new perspectives and deepened their connection to tradition.” Others appreciated how their mobility issues became part of their dabke technique, rather than restrictive or confining. Newcomers found a place in the bigger story that is dabke.
Reach out to bring Dabke Stories to your group!
Advising & Mentoring
Advising and mentoring students, both undergraduate and doctoral, builds relationships and shapes experiences that I highly value. An undergraduate summer research initiative builds confidence to enter new spaces, initiate conversations, and craft stories. A multi-year dissertation project challenges paradigms, logics, and methods while presenting original, innovative research and compelling arguments. Each of these (and other, related) opportunities are a mutually beneficial and highly fulfilling part of my work as an advisor and mentor.
I chair doctoral committees in Performance Studies and serve as a member on doctoral committees in anthropology and musicology. Follow this link for more about the Ph.D. program in Performance Studies at Northwestern University. I support undergraduate research as an advisor and mentor for summer and year-long academic programs. I also cultivate undergraduate programs and provide consultations for students in my department through my role as the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Beyond my home academic institution, I welcome invitations to learn about relevant research projects and undertakings.
Selected Academic Courses
Undergraduate Courses
- Yoga: Politics, Pedagogy, Practice
- Sound Cultures
- Contemporary Middle Eastern Performance
Graduate Courses
- Listening: Methods and Issues
- Performance and Pedagogy
- Sound Ethnography
Shayna M. Silverstein 