Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance features essays questioning the extent to which education, an activity pursued in the home, classroom, and the church, led to, mirrored, and was perhaps even transformed by moments of instruction on stage. This volume argues that along with the popular press, the early modern stage is also a key pedagogical site and that education"e;performed and performative"e;plays a central role in gender construction. The wealth of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century printed and manuscript documents devoted to education (parenting guides, conduct books, domestic manuals, catechisms, diaries, and autobiographical writings) encourages examination of how education contributed to the formation of gendered and hierarchical structures, as well as the production, reproduction, and performance of masculinity and femininity. In examining both dramatic and non-dramatic texts via aspects of performance theory, this collection explores the ways education instilled formal academic knowledge, but also elucidates how educational practices disciplined students as members of their social realm, citizens of a nation, and representatives of their gender.

Chapter 1 "Shall I teach you to know?", Kathryn M.Moncrief, Kathryn R.McPherson; Part 1 Humanism and its Discontents; Chapter 2 "Now began a new miserie", CatherineLoomis; Chapter 3 "Euery one teacheth after thyr owne fantasie", Jerome deGroot; Chapter 4 "Wonderfullye astonied at the stoutenes of her minde", DeborahUman; Chapter 5 The Radical Pedagogies of Lady Elizabeth Russell, ChrisLaoutaris; Part 2 Manifestations of Manhood; Chapter 6 "Honest payneful pastimes", JimCasey; Chapter 7 "Lustful Jove and his adulterous child", David L.Orvis; Chapter 8 "Teach us, sweet madam", Kathryn M.Moncrief; Part 3 Decoding Domesticity; Chapter 9 Early Modern Educational Culture, JeanLambert; Chapter 10 Like Mother, Like Daughter? Women Teaching Girls in Early Modern England, UlrikeTancke; Chapter 11 Alma Mater, ElizabethHodgson; Chapter 12 The Absence of Eve in Elizabeth Herbert's Catechism, Kathryn R.McPherson; Part 4 Pedagogy Performed; Chapter 13 Modeling Gender Education in The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed, AlyssaHerzog; Chapter 14 Instructional Performances, CarolineBicks; Chapter 15 Acting Virtuous, Kent R.Lehnhof;