Tracy C. Davis
Barber Professor of Performing Arts
Professor of English & Theatre
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Graduate School
Theatre Interpretation Centre 215B
Telephone: (847) 491-3138
Fax: (847) 467-1545
E-mail
Tracy C. Davis is a specialist in performance theory, theatre historiography, and research methodology. She edits the book series Cambridge Studies in Theatre and Performance Theory. She is Director of the Graduate School's Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring initiative and Chair of Northwestern University Press's Editorial Board. She is Immediate Past-President of the American Society for Theatre Research and a member of the Board of Directors for Performance Studies International.
Teaching and Research posts held at:
Harvard University, University of Glasgow, Bristol University, Queen's University (Kingston), University of Calgary, Queen Mary University London, and Northwestern University (since 1991)
Mentoring Philosophy (pdf)
Curriculum Vitae (pdf)
Selected Academic Awards, Honors, and Research Grants:
1990-91 |
Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship, Harvard University |
1994-95 |
American Philosophical Society Research Grant |
1995 |
National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship |
2000 |
George Freedley Memorial Award (Theatre Library Association) representing excellence in writing on live theatre |
2004 |
Clarence Ver Steeg Graduate Faculty Award (Northwestern University) |
2005 |
Distinguished Scholar's Prize (American Society for Theatre Research) |
2007 |
Lane Humanities Institute Teaching Professor |
2007-08 |
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow, Huntington Library |
2008-09 |
Stanley J. Kahrl Fellowship in Theatre History, Houghton Library |
2009-10 |
Distinguished Visiting Professorship, Queen Mary University of London |
2012 |
Visiting Fellow, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (Munich) Centre for Advanced Studies |
Publications by Tracy C. Davis
The Broadview Anthology of Nineteenth-Century British Performance (Broadview Press, 2012)
The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
The Performing Century: Nineteenth-Century Theatres History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
Considering Calamity: Methods for Performance Research, co-edited with Linda Ben-Zvi, Assaph (Tel Aviv: Assaph Books, 2007)
Stages of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil Defense (Duke University Press, 2007)
Theatricality, edited with Thomas Postlewait (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
The Economics of the British Stage, 1800-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Playwriting and Nineteenth-Century British Women, edited with Ellen Donkin (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
George Bernard Shaw and the Socialist Theatre(Praeger/Greenwood, 1994)
Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture (Routledge, 1991)
Books in Development:
Living in Public: Studies in Liberal Subjectivity. How is the microhistory of a mid-Victorian British family connected to the macrohistory of anti-slavery activism? This project investigates networks that connect activists to each other and the role taken by performance (in theatres, concert halls, pulpits, parliament, and at the hustings) to connect leisure time, social time, and private time to the constitution of metropolitan and global public spheres. How did a young man with a Methodist upbringing become an activist, then a writer, and finally an orator? How did a young woman with impeccable Radical credentials balance her reproductive life with a career that took her first to criticism then to activism? This project challenges reigning ideas about mid-Victorian marriage and gender, the “mere populism” of performance, and the legibility of activists who toiled and socialized among the most prominent figures of their day, lived almost entirely “under the radar” of public prominence, yet were the engineers of anti-colonial, anti-racist, and anti-genocidal critiques.
Series Editor:
Theatre and Performance Theory, General Editor, Cambridge University Press.
Editorial Boards:
Contributing Editor, TDR: The Drama Review
Honorary Advisory Editor, New Theatre Quarterly
Advisory Board, Assaph
Editorial Board, Nineteenth Century Studies
Editorial Board, Performance Studies book series, Museum Tusculanum Press
Series Editor (monographs), Global Theatre Histories (in development)
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The English Major in Writing Celebrates 30 Years on campus
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Jo Ann Beard, Frank Bidart, and George Saunders were Writers in Residence for the English Major in Writing’s 3rd Annual Spring Writers’ Festival
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Creative Writing students gather at the 3rd Annual Spring Writer’s Festival
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English Department faculty attend one of the talks organized as part of the annual One Book, One Northwestern program
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Writing students Cathy Gao (left) and Alleliah Nuguid (right) meet writer Elizabeth Benedict (center) at the Skidmore Summer Writers’ Institute.
Photo provided by Cathy Gao.
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Northwestern writing students Matt Pacult, Cathy Gao, and Alleliah Nuguid meet poet Frank Bidart at the Skidmore Summer Writers’ Institute.
Photo provided by Cathy Gao.
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Professors Mary Kinzie and John Keene celebrate 30 Years of creative writing at Northwestern
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Professors Wendy Wall (Avalon Foundation Professor, left) and Reginald Gibbons (Frances Hooper Chair in the Arts and Humanities, right) at their inauguration, with Professor Christopher Herbert (Chester D. Tripp Professor of Humanities, center)
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English Department faculty and students gathering before the Department's Fall Collation
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Professor Rebecca Johnson speaks at the English Department's Fall Collation
Upcoming Event
Elizabeth and Todd Warnock Seminar: Tim Griffin (The Kitchen)
May 23, 2013 • 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
