Picturing the Plays: Photographs and the Pedagogy of Speech and Drama at the University College for Indians at Salisbury Island

Abstract

Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present … - TS Eliot, Burnt Norton The lines from T.S. Eliot quoted above say what many academics come to realise as they reflect on their teaching and practice – that our current practice is greatly influenced by how we were shaped by our own histories. This article focuses on the work of the Speech and Drama Department at Salisbury Island’s University College for Indians, using a narrative auto-ethnographic methodology and a self-curated photo album as a social and curricular documentary. Auto-ethnography is both a research genre and a methodology, which seems most appropriate for the insider perspective I bring and also because it allows for cultural interpretation and analysis. The reason for my choice of focus is based on my lasting and abiding memories of my life as a student on Salisbury Island. My strongest memories of that time are of the Speech and Drama Department: I remember in detail the building, the various people who worked and studied there, and the plays that I acted in or helped produce. The purpose of the study is to explore the Drama curriculum offered to students during the years 1961–1971 in order to ascertain the nature of that curriculum and how it reflected those times. In other words I am looking for an ideology or intention that may come through a scrutiny of the plays studied and performed. An additional aim for me is to trace links with my own work and Drama curricula today in our province.