Daniel Gates
Assistant Professor of English
Ph. D., University of Notre Dame
B. A., Seattle Pacific University
Professor Gates specializes in early modern English literature, particularly Shakespeare. He teaches Introduction to Literary Studies (201), Writing Interpretive Papers (301), Literature of Great Britain to 1660 (311), and Survey of Shakespeare (315), among other courses.
His scholarship focuses on the religious controversies of early modern England and discourses of religious freedom. He is currently at work on an essay on the rigor of the law and the outrageous license of Vienna in Measure for Measure. His previous projects have included an article, "Unpardonable Sins: The Hazards of Performative Language in the Tragic Cases of Francesco Spiera and Doctor Faustus" (Comparative Drama, 2004), which compares the fate of Marlowe's necromancer to that of a notorious Protestant apostate in sixteenth-century Italy; in both cases, verbal formulas possess a power to bind their speakers, regardless of their intentions.
Favorite undergraduate moment: As an undergraduate, Professor Gates watched for moments in lectures and class discussions when his instructors' critical detachment would break down and their engagement with the material would shine through. As an instructor, Professor Gates can often keep his enthusiasms in check, but he admits that the end of King Lear gets him every time.
Favorite moment at SVSU: His favorite moments at SVSU are those instances when a light seems to come on for the class, or for a particular student, or for him as the instructor. For instance, when students suddenly grasp the abusiveness of Juliet's father and the apparent detachment of her mother in Romeo and Juliet while reading a scene aloud, or when a skeptical student asks why Oedipus takes the risk of marrying a woman old enough to be his mother given what the oracle has told him, he knows that students are thinking critically.
Five books that Dan would like to have with him if marooned on a deserted island: Professor Gates cannot even contemplate limiting himself to only five books to have on a desert island. If he were in this terrible situation, he would want to have copies of the complete works of both Shakespeare and Milton, and a Bible (including the Apocrypha). But if he were permitted a slightly larger library, he would want to include books by such contemporary authors as Michael Chabon, Alice Munro, and George Saunders.