Degrees
Ph.D. in American Studies, Yale University, December 2004
M.A. in American Studies, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 1999
M.A. in History, Theory, and Criticism of Theatre, University of Maryland--College Park, 1995
B.A. in Creative Writing, Honors in major, Bryn Mawr College, 1991
Diploma, Drama Department of the High School of Performing Arts, New York City, 1987
Certificates
Certificate in Women's Studies, University of Maryland -- College Park, 1999Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, Columbia University and the YIVO Institute, Summer 1998
Assistant Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of History and Literature, Harvard University, Fall 2006-Present
Assistant Director of Studies/Lecturer, Committee on Degrees in the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University, 2004-2006
Monograph under Contract
Racial Innocence: Performing Childhood and Race from Uncle Tom's Cabinto the New Negro Movement, New York University Press, part of the series, America and the Long 19th Century"
Edited Books
Cast Out: Queer Lives in Theater, The University of Michigan Press, 2006
Generation Q: Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Born Around 1969's Stonewall Riots Tell Their Stories of Growing Up in the Age of Information. Co-edited with Seth Clark Silberman. Alyson Publications, 1996
Terrible, Terrible! A Jewish Folktale Retold. Kar-Ben Books, 1998
"Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race," Social Text 101 (December 2009): 67-94.
"'Never Born': Angelina Weld Grimké's Rachel as Ironic Response to Topsy." The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Volume 19, Number 2 (Spring 2007): 61-75.
"'Too Realistic' and 'Too Distorted': The Attack on Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and the Gaze of the Queer Child." Critical Matrix: The Princeton Journal of Women, Gender, and Culture, vol. 12, no. 1-2 (Fall 2000 and Spring 2001), 26-47
"Rodney King, Shifting Modes of Vision, and Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992." Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Vol. 14, no. 2 (Spring 2000), 121-134
"Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Critical Reception of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun."Modern Drama, v. 42 (1999), 16-27
"The Queerness of Harriet the Spy," chapter in Kenneth B. Kidd and Michelle A. Abate, eds., Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's Literature (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming 2010)
"Staging Lesbian and Gay New York," chapter in Bryan Waterman and Cyrus R. K. Patell, eds., The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York City (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2010)
"In Praise of the Vernacular: Robin Bernstein Interviews Pop Icon Camille Paglia," The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, (subsequently retitled The Gay and Lesbian Review) Spring 1996: 13-15
"Where Women Rule: The World of Lesbian Cartoonists," The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Summer 1994: 20-23
"Generation Next: Not the Only One: Lesbian and Gay Fiction for Teens edited by Tony Grima and School's Out: The Impact of Gay and Lesbian Issues on America's Schools by Dan Woog," Lambda Book Report, July/August 1995: 28
"A Literature of One's Own: Am I Blue? Coming Out from Silence edited by Marion Dane Bauer and Growing Up Gay: A Literary Anthology edited by Bennett L. Singer," The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Spring 1994: 23-26
Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth
American Studies International
The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review (subsequently renamed The Gay and Lesbian Review)
The Lesbian Review of Books,
Belles Lettres
"Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy," in Censorship: A World Encyclopedia, Derek Jones, ed. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001
"Anti-Semitism," in Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures, Bonnie Zimmerman, ed. Garland Publishing, 1999, pp. 44-46
"Sholem Asch," "Alison Bechdel," and "Marijane Meaker," in Gay and Lesbian Literature, Tom and Sara Pendergast, eds. Full Circle Publishing, 1997
"Robin Bernstein Interviews Roberta
Gregory" and "Robin Bernstein Interviews Andrea Natalie," inDyke
Strippers: Lesbian Cartoonists A to Z, Roz Warren, ed. Cleis
Press, 1995: 116-117, 157-158
"Lesléa
Newman," in Contemporary
Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical
Sourcebook, Denise Knight and Sandra Pollack, eds. Greenwood
Press, 1993: 399-404
Public Talk, title TBD, Cornell University, sponsored by the Theatre Department, scheduled March 2010
Public Talk, title TBD, University of Pittsburgh, sponsored by the English Department, scheduled March 2010
Panelist, post-show discussion of Lenelle Moise’s one-woman show, Theater Offensive “Out on the Edge” festival institute, Boston, MA, scheduled November 2009
“Black Dolls, Girls, and the Performance of Pain,” Williams College (co-sponsored by the Departments of Theatre, Women’s and Gender Studies, American Studies, and Comparative Literature; the Multicultural Center; and the Sawyer Library), March 2009
"Dances with Things," invited presentation for the Photography and Memory Workshop, Yale University, September 2008
Formal Respondent, "Just Out: New Publications in American Theatre and Drama," Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Denver, CO, August 2008
Formal Respondent for panel, "Photography/Performance," at Photographic Proofs: A Conference on Image, History, and Memory, Yale University, April 2008.
"Making White Girls into Mistresses: Slavery, Race, and Raggedy Ann Stories," Columbia University Humanities Seminar, "Women and Society," May 2007.
"Can Gender Studies be a Discipline?" Formal response to Juliet Mitchell, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Women Faculty Forum, Yale University, May 2007
"Intersections of American Studies and Queer Studies," Program in American Studies, Yale University, April 2003
"Lorraine Hansberry's Life and Work," panel presentation accompanying production of The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, The American Century Theater, Washington, DC, January 2001
"Re-Placing Women: Is Identity Politics Dead?" panel presentation at the Women and Theatre Conference (in conjunction with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education), Washington, DC, August 2000
Speaker, "Queer Youth in Historical Context," Freshman Composition (English 011, sections 17 and 19), George Washington University, November 1998
Panelist, "Queer Theatre," Department of Women's Studies, University of Maryland--College Park, April 1994
Speaker: "Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs: Can Popular Theatre have Pedagogical Value?" Honor Students' Colloquium, University of Maryland--College Park, November 1993
PAPERS PRESENTED
"Scriptive Books: E.W. Kemble's A Coon Alphabet," American Literature Association, Boston, MA, May 2009
"Touching Eva, Touching Tom/Touching Eva Touching Tom," "Home, School, Play, Work: The Visual and Textual Worlds of Children," Conference of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture and the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, November 2008."Joel Chandler Harris's Reconstruction of Uncle Tom's Cabin," American Studies Association, Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.
"Scriptive Things," Performance Studies International, Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2008
"Harnessing the Dramatic Instinct," American Society for Theatre Research, Phoenix, AZ, November 2007.
"Surrogation: The Hinge between 'Real Children' and 'The Child.'" Conference of the American Society for Theatre Research, Chicago, IL, November 2006.
"L is for Longing." Paper in panel, "Photography and Memory: Relearning the Critical Alphabet." Thinking Photography (Again): An International Conference on Photography Studies, University of Durham, UK, July 2005.
"Raggedy Ann Stories and Children's Performances of the Old South." Performing Childhood: The Conference of the Children's Literature Association, Winnipeg, Canada, June 2005.
The Literary Management of Reproduction: Raggedy Ann Stories and the Training of Child-Consumers." Conference of the American Literature Association,Boston, MA, May 2005.
The Continuity between Good and Bad Taste: James Whitcomb Riley as Hawker of Patent Medicine and Nationalist Poetry." Conference of the American Society for Theatre Research, Las Vegas, NV, November 2004.
“Storytime: Re-Imagining the Civil War through the Space of the Nursery.” Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Toronto, Canada, July 2004
"Using Performance Theory to Analyze Racist Collectibles." Conference of the American Studies Association, Hartford, CT, October 2003
"Talismans of the Middle Class: Nineteenth-Century Postmortem Daguerreotypes of Children." Conference of the American Studies Association, November 2001
"Minstrelsy and the Enfreakment of Little Eva." Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Washington, DC, August 2000
"Collecting Exotics: Realism, White Supremacy, and the Critical Reception of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun." Conference of the Modern Language Association, Chicago, IL, December 1999
"The White Girl on the Minstrel's Knee: Little Eva, Uncle Tom, and the Cross-'Racial' Embrace." Conference of the American Studies Association, Montreal, Canada, October 1999
"Performing America: The Merging of American Studies and Performance Studies." Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Toronto, Canada, July 1999
"'Too Realistic' and 'Too Distorted': The Attack on Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and the Gaze of the Queer Child." Conference of the American Literature Association, Baltimore, MD, April 1999
"'Awakened by her loving touch': A Perverse Reading of Popular Representations of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan." Conference of the Popular Culture Association, San Diego, CA, March 1999
"A Living Museum of a Dead Race: Edwin Forrest in Metamora." Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, San Antonio, TX, August 1998
"Rodney King, Shifting Modes of Vision, and Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992." Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, San Antonio, TX, 1998
"Women and Theatrical Cross-Dressing in Spain During the Golden Age." Women's Works, Women's Words, Duke University, Durham, NC, November 1994
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
“Everyone is Impressed: Slavery as a Tender Embrace From Uncle Tom’s to Uncle Remus’s Cabin,” The Gender and Sexuality Seminar of The Humanities Center at Harvard University, February 2009
Panelist, “Talkback” following The Veiled Monologues, American Repertory Theatre, October 2007
Featured Guest Speaker, Women in Society Dinner for the Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Leadership Conference, September 2007.
Panelist, "Talkback" following production of Adelheid Roosen's The Veiled Monologues, American Repertory Theatre, October 2007
Panelist, GLBTQ Scholarship in Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, June 2007.
"Making White Girls into Mistresses: Slavery, Race, and Raggedy Ann Stories," the Gender and Sexuality Seminar of The Humanities Center at Harvard University May 2006.
“‘Never Born’: Angelina Weld Grimke’s Rachel as Ironic Response to the Topsy Stereotype,” Talking Shop: A Conference of the History and Literature Tutorial Board, December 2006.
“Making White Girls into Mistresses: Slavery, Race, and Raggedy Ann Stories,” Humanities Center New Faculty Lunch Series, November 2006.
Guest Speaker, Mae West’s 1933 movie screening, She Done Him Wrong, Radcliffe Institute, October 2006.
“Introduction to Cultural Studies,” Against the Grain: Critical Approaches to Gender and Sexuality (WGS 1002), Spring 2005.
“Performance Theory,” Against the Grain: Critical Approaches to Gender and Sexuality (WGS 1002), Spring 2005.
National and International Competitions
Betsy Beinecke Shirley Fellowship in American Children's Literature, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 2008.
Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship for research on American art or visual culture, American Antiquarian Society, 2008
David Keller Travel Grant, American Society for Theatre Research, 2006
Thomas F. Marshall Travel Grant, American Society for Theatre Research, 2004
Mellon Seminar in Writing Performance History, Yale University, 2003
Gene Wise-Warren Susman Prize, 2001
Honorable Mention in Fiction, Astraea Emerging Lesbian Writers Fund Award, 1999
Debut Panels (competitive sessions designed to showcase work of emerging scholars), Conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, San Antonio, TX, August 1998
Lambda Book Report Travel Grant to attend 1997 Lambda Literary Awards Ceremony
Internship, National Yiddish Book Center. Amherst, MA, Summer 1991
Selected University-Wide Competitions
Grantee, Open Gate Funding to bring performance artist Tim Miller to perform and speak at Harvard, November 2009
Grantee, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Tenure-Track Faculty Publication Fund to support inclusion of 60 images in monograph, Racial Innocence: Performing Childhood and Race from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the New Negro Movement (New York University Press), 2009
Awardee, Clark Fund for Research Support, 2008
Awardee, Gordon Gray Faculty Grant for Writing Pedagogy for committee to create a guide for senior thesis-writers in the Program of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality, 2007
Recipient, Course Innovation Funds to fund live performances for students in Gender and Sexuality (WGS 1133), Fall 2007
Faculty Ally of the Year, The Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance (now the QSA), Harvard University, 2005
Award, John Perry Miller Fund, Yale University, Summer 2004
Graduate Fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Summer 2004 (declined)
University Dissertation Fellowship, Yale University, 2003-2004
Graduate Fellowship, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, Fall 2002
John F. Enders Research Grant, Yale University, Summer 2002
University Fellowship, Yale University, 1999-2003
Full Scholarship, Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature and Culture, Columbia University and the YIVO Institute, Summer 1998
Travel Grant to attend the national conference of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, George Washington University, 1998
Graduate Fellowship, George Washington University, 1996-1998
University Fellowship, University of Maryland--College Park, 1993-1995
Dolphin Scholarship, Bryn Mawr College, 1987-1991
Harvard University
Yale University
The George Washington University
Courses Assistant-Taught
SERVICE TO THE PROFESSION
Member, Conference Committee, “Destined for Men: Visual Materials for Male Audiences, 1750-1880,” conference of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, October 2009
Member, Awards and Honors Committee, American Theatre and Drama Society, 2009-2010
Member, Marshall and Keller Travel Award Committee of the American Society for Theatre Research, 2008-2011
Co-organizer, “Performance in Historical Paradigms Working Group,” 2008-2010:
Evaluator, Boston Social Innovation Forum, “Women and Girls” division, 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 (member of committee charged with awarding over $70,000 in funding and services to a Boston-based nonprofit that serves women and/or girls)
Referee, Rutgers University Press (2005-2007), The University of Michigan Press (2005-2007), The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (2008), The Journal of American Drama and Theatre (special issue edited by the American Theatre and Drama Society, 2008 and 2009), and the Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (2005-2007).
Panel Chair, “The Child and the New Republic,” New England Modern Language Association, Boston, MA, February 2009
Moderator, "Representations: Looking at Imagined Bodies and Identities," panel at the Conference of the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies, March 2007
Email List Manager, Nineteenth-Century American Women Writers Study Group, 2004-2007
Member at Large, Women and Theatre Program, 2004-2007
Member, Nominations Committee, American Theatre and Drama Society, 2005
Co-Founder and Co-Coordinator, Childhood Studies Working Group, Yale University, 2003-2004
Co-Coordinator, Photography and Memory Workshop, Yale University, 2002-2004 (Member, 1999-2004)
Graduate Student Representative, Board of the American Theatre and Drama Society, 1998-2003Co-Organizer, American Studies Symposium, Yale University, May 2002
Single-time consultant to Kathleen Hulser, Public Historian, New-York Historical Society, regarding NYHS exhibit on Uncle Tom's Cabin in American culture, November 2000
Editor, "Report of the Task Force on Achieving Excellence in Undergraduate Education," University of Maryland--College Park, 1996
Writer, "Adopt-A-Character" fundraiser, Shakespeare on Wheels, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Summer 1994
Founding Director, Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Alliance Center, Bryn Mawr College, 1989-1991
SELECTED SERVICE TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Member, Board of Directors, Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies (Representative of Harvard University), 2009-2010, 2007-2008
Co-Chair, Gender and Sexuality Seminar, The Humanities Center, 2009-2010 (with Joyce Antler of Brandeis University), 2006-2007 (with Brad Epps of Harvard University), and 2005-2006 (with Afsaneh Najmabadi and Judith Surkis of Harvard University)
Committee Chair, Eugene R. Cummings Thesis Prize for GLBTQ Studies, 2008
Co-Chair (with Nancy Cott and Afsaneh Najmabadi), Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Research Workshop, "Interdisciplinary Gender and Sexuality Workshop" for graduate students, 2007-2008
Organizer of Roundtable discussion, “Legends in Queer Performance: Can Theater Change the World?,” October 2007. Roundtable featured founding members of Split Britches Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver, plus the Five Lesbian Brothers Ladies Auxiliary including Moe Angelos, Karen “Mal” Malme, Linda Monchik, Brigid O’Connor, and Vanessa Soto, and directors Kate Caffery and Adam Sussman. Created 16-page program for event.
Faculty Advisor, The Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters Alliance, 2006-2008
Co-Leader, Curriculum Vitae Workshop for Graduate Students in Gender and Sexuality Studies, April 2006
Chair, Junior Essay Award Committee, Program of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Spring 2005 and Spring 2006
Chair, Senior Thesis Award Committee, Program of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Spring 2006
Co-Organizer, "The Weather in Proust," a series of lectures accompanied by an exhibit of fiber art by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Fall 2005
Member, Committee to Organize "Turning Points: Celebrating our Past, Present and Future," Program of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, 2004-2005
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE
Editor, Bridges, a biannual, international journal of Jewish feminist culture and politics, 1996-2000
Associate Editor/Features, The Washington Blade, nationally distributed weekly of Washington, D.C. 1994-1995
Interviewed by Caitlin E. Curran for "Socks Appeal," an article about drag kings, Boston Phoenix, 9 July 2008
Interviewed by Harbour Fraser Hodder for"Girl Power," article in Harvard Magazine, January-February 2008
Directing
"Raid," performance based on 1923 controversy surrounding Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance, University of Maryland--College Park, March 1994.Dramaturgy
The London Merchantperson, "distorted" by Susan Leonardi and Catherine Schuler from George Lillo's The London Merchant, University of Maryland-College Park, March-April 1995
God of Vengeance, by Sholem Asch, adapted by Stephen Fife, University of Maryland-College Park, March 1994
Brighton Beach Memoirs, by Neil Simon, University of Maryland-College Park, November 1992
Playwriting
"Good Food Foot" produced as part of Feast or Famine, directed and adapted by Tina Thuerwachter, Live Bait Theatre, Chicago, IL, January-February 1996
"Selected Shorts" opened evening
of one-act plays produced by Avalanche: A Multi-Racial Lesbian and Gay
Theatre Troupe, Philadelphia, PA, June 1991
PROFESSIONAL
MEMBERSHIPS
Association for Theatre in Higher Education,
American Society for Theatre Research
American Theatre and Drama Society
Society for the Study of American Women Writers
Society for the History of Childhood and Youth
Children's Literature Association
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