My classmate, Adriana Escalante, and I had the opportunity of interviewing our professor, Dr. Marjorie Woods, and getting to know her better. It was funny because Dr. Woods seemed to ask us just as many questions as we asked her. But that’s how she is; she is genuinely interested in each of her students and cares about how they’re doing. While munching on sour gummies and chocolate chip cookies, we chatted about her interests and past experiences.
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What do you like to do for fun?
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I like to watch sports and read mysteries. I also like to travel – I worked in 60 different libraries in Europe for my last book. I like going to Europe. I’ve never been to South America; I would like to do that. And I love Hawaii. It’s one of my favorite places. What I love to do here, in Austin, also is to listen to live music and go to films. The last few years when I was finishing my book, I haven’t done anything, so I kind of feel as if I’ve been really out of it for a while, but I’m trying to get back into the habit of things. I also love food shopping.
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How do you describe your own teaching style?
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I get bored of my own ideas, so I’m really sort of obsessed with bringing student ideas into the class and reading things I haven’t read before. I like the combination of teaching some stuff I know really well but then doing stuff that I’ve never donebefore and sort of doing it in an ad hoc manner. I mostly don’t like to be stuck in my head. I don’t like to lecture; I already know what I think. I’m interested in what other people think and how we can combine all of that.
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What is it about the medieval period that interests you so much?
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There’s so much left to learn. If you work on Latin manuscripts, there are hundreds of thousands of manuscripts that have survived. So there’s this huge amount of stuff that people haven’t looked at. Almost at least half of the time, I may be the first person looking at a manuscript since it was put there.
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If you could take your class anywhere for a day of educational fun, where would you take them?
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I think Rome, because you can do the ancient stuff, the medieval stuff, and the Renaissance stuff. And it’s a really beautiful city…and I know where to go to eat. I like being places where there have been people thinking and feeling and reading and writing for centuries, and so Europe attracts me in that way.
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If you were to do something besides medieval work and teaching, do you know what it would be?
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Actually, I love clothes and fashion and things like that. It would probably be either a librarian, which is another form of books and stuff, but librarians don’t get to read enough. That’s the problem – they’re around books but they don’t get to read. So if I was going to do something completely different I would love to be a personal shopper in a store that takes people around and helps them find clothes. My sisters and I do that for each other all the time. Also, I love films. I might do something with that.
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What piece of advice would you give to incoming freshmen?
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Take courses from good teachers, but also take courses in material that interest you, even if the teacher isn’t supposed to be great. Both reasons are really important. I went into the field I went into because I took a lecture class with three students in it and the teacher didn’t give us eye contact the entire semester, but the material was so interesting. Also, if you can do study abroad, you should. I went to France. I was also supposed to go to Korea to do English speaking but my parents at that point said it would be too complicated to do both, so I had to sort of sit and think about it and I decided Europe was what I really wanted to do. I think that’s one of the best things you can do, no matter what your major is or what you come from or where you go.
