Interview with Dr McComas Taylor
This is part of a series of interviews with academics. Find out more about Woolf and the academics who are driving research forward at woolf.university.
Dr McComas Taylor is Assistant Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. His research is located at the intersection of contemporary critical theory and Sanskrit narrative literature.
McComas, you started your studies in Sanskrit literature later during your career. Could you tell us more about your previous background and how you were brought to study this language and its rich narrative literature?
In my last year of high school I picked up an English translation of Chinese classic, ‘Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty’ and I was sold! My first degree was in Chinese literature. That led to a decade of intense work in Tibetan studies, after which I taught and translated Tibetan literature. My intellectual interests continued in a southerly direction: Tibetan led to Sanskrit. One night in 1995 I saw Peter Brook’s 6-hour video of his dramatisation of the Mahābhārata. That threw another switch for me. The next day I went out and bought ‘Teach Yourself Sanskrit’ (not a very good place to start, as it turns out). I subsequently found some wonderful tutors and mentors, and eventually went back to university and did my PhD in Sanskrit literature.
The teaching at Woolf centers on one-to-one tutorial teaching, either in person or through distance learning. How does tutorial teaching help students to grapple with complex questions in your field of study? What is your experience with this form of teaching?
Direct, personal engagement with a dedicated, focussed, reliable instructor is the finest form of learning: the passing of precious knowledge from one person to another. This is particularly so with an arcane and complex system like Sanskrit grammar. I have taught students all over the world online in one-to-one or small-group classes, with students online as far from me in Australia as Portugal, Japan and South Africa. I also claim to be the only person in the world who exports Sanskrit to India. Deep, personal engagement is the key to success in the study of Sanskrit. This is how I learned from my wonderful gurus, and how I aim to teach my own students.
What opportunities from the Woolf platform most excite you as a teacher and scholar?
I love the promise of disruption that the Woolf platform offers. As a dedicated Uber user and Airb&b resident, the very notion of disrupting established institutions appeals to me. (This may sound strange from someone involved with the unchanging world of Sanskrit grammar!) I am also saddened by the way in which contemporary universities have abandoned the learning for its own sake in the name of utilitarianism. It is increasingly difficult to find institutions in this neo-liberal world where a subject like Sanskrit is still supported. I am so looking forward to participating in the Woolf University model and sharing in the diversity it offers.
Learn more about the Woolf project and the people involved on the Woolf website.
