Braunmuller thrives on coffee, Shakespearian lit and students

Braunmuller thrives on coffee, Shakespearian lit and
students

English prof revels in teaching, aims for an ‘intellectual
exchange’ of ideas

By Donna Wong

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Sipping a cup of French Roast, leaning on a table outside the
North Campus eatery, English Professor A.R. Braunmuller, remembers
a time in 1971 when he loved the UCLA campus and students, but
wasn’t so crazy about the city.

Recalling his first months with the UCLA department of English
­ when he still held his northern California prejudice against
Los Angeles ­ Braunmuller talked about the time he was driving
home on Sunset Boulevard with the top down on his convertible, and
the sun on his face.

Cruising down the boulevard, he glanced at a Rolls Royce beside
him ­ an icon of the Hollywood glitz and pretension he held in
such disdain, he said.

But what he discovered on the other side of the car was
something that completely changed his mind about Los Angeles ­
a deer galloping along the grassy center divider keeping pace with
his car.

"At once I had nature and the highest of artifice on both sides,
and after that, (Los Angeles) has only gotten better," Braunmuller
said.

Awarded the 1994-96 UCLA Gold Shield Faculty Prize this year,
and entering his first year as president of the Renaissance English
Text Society, Braunmuller said he loves UCLA and the city.

"Los Angeles welcomes, and it accepts so many different values,
so many different people, that it just makes for a wonderful
environment," Braunmuller said.

A scholar of Shakespeare and Renaissance dramatic literature,
Braunmuller is now editing a version of Shakespeare’s
"Macbeth."

And after its completion, he plans to begin researching what
Shakespeare and his contemporaries revealed about societal
attitudes through literary and dramatic interpretations of the law,
Braunmuller said.

Originally, he planned to be an aeronautical engineer, but
during his undergraduate years at Stanford University, Braunmuller
quickly discovered his love for the concepts of representation,
enactment and action that Shakespeare’s dramatic works involved, he
said.

Calling them "pleasing to the ear, and comprehensible to the
mind," Braunmuller now teaches dramatic works with ease at UCLA,
and although he loves reading novels, he wouldn’t know how to teach
them, he said.

When he first introduces undergraduate students to Shakespeare
­ especially those in his lower division classes ­ he
begins by introducing them to all that happens at a theater.

Knowing that many have never been to the theater, Braunmuller
explains to them what exactly constitutes the stage and what
exactly constitutes the spectators.

"After that, I just let them loose on any piece of Shakespeare
and they’re fine," Braunmuller said.

Calling students the university’s primary engine, Braunmuller
considers the drive for excellence at UCLA that pushes professors
to publish and contribute to the intellectual pool only a fact of
belonging to such an institution.

But ultimately, "no teacher is unaffected by the desire to
teach," he said

Once quoted in the Bruin saying, "What we’re doing is raising a
generation who is learning to spell relief r-o-l-a-i-d-s,"
Braunmuller likes to encourage critical and independent thought in
his classes.

He is unable to get away from the fact that there is only one of
him and scores of students at UCLA ­ pushing him to be as
inclusive as possible with his students, he said.

So if anyone ever happens to sit in on one of his classes, they
may think they are listening in on a languid conversation over a
cup of coffee.

First introducing an idea, then inviting members of the class to
take the discussion further, he tries to maintain a stream of
intellectual exchange, Braunmuller said.

And although the amount of information he gets across may be
less, students retain more than if he tried conducting class
standing behind a podium, he added.

"Being able to look critically at an article, book or play is
more important than knowing when Ben Jonson died," he said.

Braunmuller views literature and drama as "timely" not
"timeless," and he believes his area of scholarship has a somewhat
trans-historical existence.

"The (modern) culture has more or less decided that there are
plays worth talking about so they are a part of a continuing
cultural dialogue," Braunmuller said.

Toying with his half empty cup of coffee, he looks at his
present days in UCLA’s labyrinth of construction fences and dust
clouds as still very committed to scholarship and teaching after
nearly 23 years at UCLA.

"It’s a privilege to be doing what I’m doing," Braunmuller said.
"And as hard as it can be from day to day, I find it very
rewarding."

He fills out the rest of his life with jogging, traveling or
eating out with friends at the Japanese-French Cafe Katsu in Los
Angeles. He would ultimately like to travel to China or India and
just watch the people in those countries.

Maybe he’d even learn to use the railroad system in India ­
after all, travel is self-exploration as well as other-exploration,
he said.

And although he has visited virtually every country in Europe,
and traversed the United States to study at Stanford and then Yale
University in Connecticut, he still won’t admit what state on the
east coast he was born in.

"I won’t reveal the state because you’ll just make fun of it,"
he said.