2008 Woodie Awards
Teacher Feature - David Kilpatrick
Issue date: 2/17/06 Section: News
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"I always felt this drive inside myself. My interests in drama and history have existed for as long as I can remember," said Kilpatrick.
For his bachelor's degree, he attended Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and received a degree in English and philosophy. Shortly after, he attended SUNY at Binghamton for his Master's degree in Philosophy and his Ph.D in Comparative Literature.
Now Kilpatrick is an assistant professor in the Division of Literature, Language and Communications at Mercy College. His career at Mercy began while he was finishing his doctoral dissertation eight years ago.
His research focuses mainly on the representation of violence in literature and he link between philosophy and literature. His favorite classes to teach are history of drama and graduate level modernism. He also teaches classes such as "Film and the Psychology of Violence" and "The Bible as Literature."
Kilpatrick was born and raised in upstate New York. He became involved in what he loved from an early age, through high school, and into college. Later, he joined a theatre company.
He still loves drama but has moved on from directing and acting and is now more involved in critiquing. He has had essays and performance reviews published in the Brooklyn Rail, Theatre Journal and The New England Theatre Journal, among others. He is always interested in reading a play and seeing how it comes out and works on stage.
"Some of what you see on Off- and Off-Off Broadway can be downright awful. But without the commercial constraints of the industry midtown, artists are allowed to be artists. And that's what excites me; a live performance that takes chances, without regard for profit or utility."
Born and living after the 1960s, a time that experienced the "culture wars," he became interested in philosophy. He learned to look at different sides of the spectrum and what was at stake for different kinds of people at the time.
His work is interdisciplinary and New York's unique diversity makes it the perfect place for him to be working, with people of different backgrounds that give insight to his work.
"Living in NY, I get the chance to see the world's leading theatrical innovators on a regular basis, so I strive to keep my scholarship as cutting edge as the artists I study. And not only do I get to see important productions; I often get the chance to meet the writers, directors, and actors involved - sometimes even witness their rehearsal techniques. And this definitely informs not just my scholarship, but also my own artistic sensibility."