What does it mean to teach 'context' in an English Literature lesson?

What does it mean to teach ‘context’ in a literature lesson? Has the notion of context helped or hindered teachers’ practice of teaching literary texts and what experience of literary reading do students gain from such teaching? Has the concept of ‘context’, a long standing facet of literary analysis become too narrow? These questions, as well as the central question of where does contextual knowledge come from, will be wrestled with by a panel of passionate and experienced practitioners from within the subject.

Our speakers

Joe Barber FEA is Senior Lecturer in English Education at Manchester Metropolitan University and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Joe is a member of the English Association’s Secondary and Further Education Committee. His doctoral thesis examines PGCE students’ instantiation of literary theory in their teaching and he is currently writing a book chapter on the role of empathy in literary critical reading.

Janine Bradbury is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Writing and Culture at the University of York. She’s an award-winning poet and critic working across several research areas including African American and Black British writing, popular culture, and creative writing. Janine was a teaching associate at The University of Sheffield (where she completed her PhD), before moving to York St John University in 2013 where she held several senior leadership positions during her 8 years there. She has written for the Guardian, and the Young Vic Theatre, and has been a repeat guest on BBC Radio 4.

Wendy Lennon FEA obtained her PhD from the Shakespeare Institute in 2024. Lennon is an academic researcher and English teacher working across literature, geography, history, and race. Her first academic book, Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy: Early Modern Colonialism to the Windrush is to be published by Cambridge University Press and she has a chapter titled ‘Skin/Pedagogy’ forthcoming in an Arden Bloomsbury collection. Lennon has been appointed a Fellow of The Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series 2024 -2026. She is a member of the British Shakespeare Association’s education committee, a Fellow of the English Association, a member of the Early Modern Scholars of Colour Network and is on the editorial board for the journal English. Wendy is also on the Advisory Board for a joint project between the University of Oxford and University College London researching the teaching of empire. The international ‘Shakespeare, Race & Pedagogy’ education initiative #shakeracepedagogy was founded by Wendy in 2019, and she project managed an ERC funded program at the University of Oxford which received the 2022 Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation and Engagement award. Following her undergraduate English degree at Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Exeter Secondary English PGCE, Wendy has been an English teacher for over a decade.

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