Dr. Jana Mathews, associate professor of English and Medieval Literature at Rollins College, has been teaching a course based on George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series and its television adaptation for the past 5 years and it’s arguably one of the coolest things we’ve heard of all year.
Matthews has a perfect 5.0 rating on RateMyProfessor.com.
We had a chance to chat with Mathews over the phone this week to get the low down on her innovative teaching methods and hear a little bit behind the reasoning behind her choice to dissect the works of George R.R. Martin.
Q – Dr. Mathews, you specialize in early medieval and early modern British literature, which can be pretty stuffy subject matter at the best of time
A – My time studying lit as an undergrad was primarily with old British men, which is as fun as it sounds. It’s changing generationally as they old out of the system but it was a pretty boring and inaccessible subject when I was in school. It was a class I had to take to check a box but I kept thinking, “We can do better than this.” I wanted to change the way it was presented because I actually loved the material, just not the way it was discussed and dissected in class.
Q – Do you know any older languages?
Since I work with older texts I know Olde English and Latin, and can also read High-Middle German and a few other esoteric things.
Q – What’s the real value in studying historical fiction like this? Is it primarily as a platform to reference historical figures that the characters are similar to?
A – Students want to map out the relationships between specific people and characters but Martin’s too smart to use just one person as a reference. For example, Brienne of Tarth is an animation of what could happen if Joan of Arc was allowed to live on for an extended time.
Martin is a “public medievalist” in a sense, with his own hodge-podge of history that takes all of the best things from Vikings and medieval history.
Q – On a recent WMFE interview you reference more “experiential activities” what’s that all about?
A -When teaching a class, it’s important to meet students where they are because they learn by doing.
A typical class is 16-15 students that I then break up into houses, just like in the books; Lannisters, Targaryens, Starks, and this year we even had the White Walkers. Then they compete in seven challenges throughout the semester and earn points for their houses, so it can get really competitive. One of the challenges this year is reading medieval magic books and recreating and performing the old spells.
Another challenge is to recreate medieval torture devices based on their assigned house that they have to sell to other students. We’re actually having a tournament next week where they design their own tourney games and compete against each other.
A favorite is one that teaches how dangerous it was to be an heir by using eggs as the students’ babies and challenging them to keep them “alive” for 48-hours. Other houses try to steal, ransom, and kill the other babies just like in the series. Everyone’s out to get them. Students are awarded points for kidnapping and killing the egg babies. Some have been catapulted into Lake Virginia. There is no safe place, just like in history and in Martin’s works.
Q – What is it about “quest” narratives that are so engaging for modern day audiences?
A – We’re all part of a broader epic in our every day lives. ‘Where do I come from?’ and ‘Where am I going?’ are some of the big questions we wrestle with every day. Martin asks those questions in narratively/historically displaced ways, with exaggerated human emotions, but based in animations that we can still identify with.
Q – Do you know of any other courses like this in other colleges?
Rollins is so amazing because so many professors do experiential lessons and they really let us experiment with our curriculum. And sure, other people are teaching Game of Thrones classes, but nobody really teaches it the way I do.
Q – I understand you worked on a script for Arabian Nights Dinner Theatre? Do you do consultation gigs like that often? What’s a dream project like that for you?
A – I did it first. Before teaching. I took some students to see the show since it’s based on an actual medieval text, with the help of a Rollins alum. That led to writing a 90-minute show with them that took about a year; which I worried that time could have been used to writing more than a few academic papers. Faculty and Staff saw it as a great opportunity though and really encouraged me to take the opportunity to share a historically accurate piece with roughly a million people who saw the show, and I’m glad I did it.
Q – What can you tell me about your work with sororities and fraternities? You serve as an executive chairman on a fraternity chapter, right?
A – It was a completely random thing! I realized I had to muster an audience for my first semester teaching medieval literature and I was desperate to build a connection with the students after my first class proved to be not really into the material. They couldn’t have been more disinterested. I noted a large number of my students that were taking part in the Greek system; about 50 percent of Rollins undergrads are members of a Greek-letter organization compared to the 10 percent national average. I started shadowing fraternities and sororities to show my interest in what students were doing to get them more interested in what I was teaching. Really, really powerful experience.
I’m working on a project about it that should be published soon.
Dr. Mathews will be retiring her Game of Thrones course at the end of this season but we know this won’t be the last we hear from her.
Other Mathews-branded courses include “Bad Breakups,” “Dungeons and Dragons,” “Hoarders,” and “Sex, War, and Plague.”
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