Tragedy as a Teacher of Liberal Complexity: Using Shakespeare to Challenge Undergraduates To Become More Skillful Readers of Liberal Texts.

Interdisciplinary approaches can be used to deepen an understanding of disciplinary content in the undergraduate classroom. The introduction of a tragic work like King Lear into a political theory curriculum can enhance an appreciation of classical liberalism's complexity. Drawing upon Aristotle's theory of tragedy, this paper argues that an engagement with a work like King Lear can help students identify movement and voice—similar to what Aristotle termed peripety and discovery—within texts and then apply such skills and accomplish a more complex reading of Hobbes and Locke. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]