Caitlin Hubbard
Early Modern Literature; Restoration/18th-century Drama; Theater and Performance Studies; Shakespeare Adaptation and Performance History; Enlightenment Theories of Knowledge Formation; Spectacle in Theater and Politics
An Intellectual History of Theatrical Spectacle
Dissertation Description:
My dissertation, “Spectacle as Action and Idea in the British Theater, 1605-1705,” argues that seventeenth-century British theater-makers, encouraged by theories of empirical learning to prioritize spectacle, combined and experimented with changeable scenery, costumes, and actors to make “moving pictures” that ultimately became both primary drivers of dramatic action and instruments of political and imperial pedagogy.
Advisors: Feisal Mohamed, Joseph Roach, Catherine Nicholson