Introducing Professor Alicia Andrzejewski
Image provided by Professor Andrzejewski
This interview dives into the world of Professor Alicia Andrzejewski, an exciting new presence in the William and Mary English department whose work explores new ideas in older texts, such as the presence of queer pregnancy in the work of Shakespeare.
One of the two newest members of the English faculty is Alicia Andrzejewski (pronounced an-dre-yev-ski, but many of her students call her Dr. A). Professor Andrzejewski is a talented new professor who specializes in early modern literature and wrote her PhD on Shakespeare. However, her work approaches this period from an entirely new perspective. “My way of approaching Shakespeare is not based on making conjectures about his life” she told me.
Her current focus is a book project titled Queer Pregnancy in Shakespeare’s Plays. When asked to elaborate on this project, Dr. A said, “when it comes to scholars who are interested in LGBTQ+ lives in Shakespeare’s work, they’ve done excellent work on finding homoerotic desire in the plays, but they tend to see pregnancy as representative of heteronormative structures.” Professor Andrzejewski explained that “what I found is that because childbirth was largely a woman’s business, and midwives would help women through their pregnancies, there was this space created through pregnancy and childbirth for women to become intimate with each other and be with each other and love each other and I feel that in many ways it’s reflected in Shakespeare’s work.” When asked why she chose Shakespeare, she said “if you want take down or you want to challenge heteronormative beliefs, or if you want to challenge this distinction where you cannot talk about pregnancy and queerness…go big. Do it with Shakespeare.”
“if you want take down or you want to challenge heteronormative beliefs, or if you want to challenge this distinction where you cannot talk about pregnancy and queerness…go big. Do it with Shakespeare.”
This mixture of early modern literature and queer and feminist theory is what makes Professor Andrzejewski’s work so unique. Although we discussed the difficulties that are present when trying to understand these older characters through new vocabulary, she justified these interpretations by saying “just because someone names something doesn’t mean that people didn’t exist before the categorization who had similar experiences and feelings and ways in the world.” While she may face challenges in her work, Dr. A just wants “to do something that might matter and make a difference in people’s lives.”
All of Professor Andrzejewski’s areas of interest will be coming together for a senior seminar she will be teaching this spring, titled “Race, Science, & Reproduction.” This course will trace literature from the early modern period to the present, and one of the objectives of the course is to ask: “How has race informed our understanding of reproduction and led to where we are now and the treatment of women of color, especially black women, in the medical system?” Professor Andrzejewski says “what we believe about reproduction has a lot to do with larger ideologies, so looking at it through this lens might inform or make visible some unexamined beliefs.”
Dr. A is excited to be at William & Mary because she feels as if this university will be the perfect space to further her research, while also getting to explore these more uncommon themes in the classroom. “Public schools are very important to me” she said. “I didn’t even know places like this existed where you were valued for your teaching and your research equally. I love teaching and I adore my students.” The intimate environment of William & Mary will also be the perfect place for her to share the works she treasures. When asked what author she would choose if she could teach a course on anyone, she said “it definitely wouldn’t be Shakespeare.” She told me she would either choose Octavia Butler or Haruki Murakami. “I would love to do a Murakami course. I haven’t been here long enough to create the Murakami cult, but I had one at King’s College… He’s magic.”
“I think what good scholarship does is that it opens up a possibility that you weren’t thinking about before.”
Our faculty is already made better by the inclusion of Professor Andrzejewski and it will be exciting to see how she continues to challenge the status quo in her work and her teaching. As she said, “I think what good scholarship does is that it opens up a possibility that you weren’t thinking about before.” Professor Andrzejewski wants to push her students to challenge their own assumptions and to question their understanding of the world around us and the literature it has produced. “It’s all messy but that’s me.” Her work is certainly not messy, but it is a valuable addition to the English Department and the William & Mary campus as a whole.
Originally published in Inside Tucker Hall Volume II, Issue 1