About

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater

PhD, Harvard University 2019

MA, Harvard University 2015

BA, UNC-Chapel Hill 2010

I specialize in modern drama and European and Anglophone literatures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. My additional research interests include affect theory, phenomenology, and the history of psychology. My current book project, The Radiant Abyss: Boredom and the Modern Stage,  examines the symbiotic histories of theatrical innovation and boring aesthetics from Existentialist philosophy of the nineteenth century to the present moment, with key studies on Maeterlinck, Chekhov, and Beckett.
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At Harvard University, I am the Executive Director of the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research. During the year 2018-2019, I was a Mellon Fellow at the Council for European Studies at Columbia University.

Elizabeth M Phillips CV 112921

COURSES at BATES:

DNTH 105: Introduction to Performance Studies

DNTH 202: Devising Performance

THEA 306: Prison, Abolition, Art

GSTH 116: Gender, Politics, Performance

THEA s39: Boredom

PUBLICATIONS:

“Chekhov, Boredom, and Pathology as Dramatic Technique.” Modern Drama 63.1, pp. 39-62.

“Prison Abolition and the Toxicity of Slowness.” Post45 Contemporaries Boredom Cluster.

“‘The mood is of no importance’: Beckett’s Phenomenology of Boredom.” Philosophy and Literature.

“Treadwell and Histrionic Modernism.” Modernism in Contemporary Performance, Edinburgh UP.

“Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.” Theatre Journal.

Outside of the academy, I make theater with the New York-based Cacolet Collective and the Durham, NC-based Delta Boys.