Graduate Student, School of Literature and Creative Writing
Case Western Reserve University, English (MA)
The College of Wooster, Theater and Dance (BA)
About
I am a scholar of drama, poetry, and literary theory, and my history reflects an interest in textual study that borrows freely from different genres and disciplinary techniques. First, as a student of theatre performance theory, my undergraduate thesis (College of Wooster, 2005) chronicled the role of silence in the evolution of stage dialogue. The written work was accompanied by an acting recital featuring selections from Strindberg, Beckett, and Mamet, and it was during this process that I developed a keen interest in performance-based research.
Next, I crossed into the territory of poetry and drama, discovering a fascination with the mechanical, narratological, and theoretical territories they share. My MA thesis (Case Western Reserve University, 2008) constructed a critical review of the obscure playwriting career of American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Tracking Millay's development as a dramatist, I paid particular attention to her motivations for dramatising certain sentiments. Working with relatively untouched materials taught me the difficulties and the rewards of forging a new path of scholarship.
My current work considers the broader "family" of poet-playwrights from modernism onward--I propose modern verse drama as a focused (and particularly nuanced) avenue for studying shifts and trends in art. Working with a group of representative texts, I am examining tensions between allusion and innovation, nostalgia and subversion, and sentimentalism and revolution.
