Tracy C. Davis

About

Tracy C. Davis is the Ethel M. Barber Professor of Performing Arts and a Professor of Theatre and English at Northwestern University. Her academic specialization includes 19th-century British theatre history, gender and theatre, and performance theory. She regularly teaches courses on 19th-century culture, theatre history, and historiography. Her current research focuses on mid-19th-century liberalism. Davis has held teaching and research positions at numerous institutions including the University of Cologne, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Harvard University, University of Glasgow, Bristol University, Queen's University in Kingston, University of Calgary, and Queen Mary University London, among others. She is series editor for 'Theatre and Performance Theory' published by Cambridge University Press and co-editor for 'Transnational Theatre Histories' and 'Critical Media Histories: Performance and Repertoires.' Her work encompasses a broad range of topics within theatre and performance studies, with notable contributions to understanding the history and historiography of theatre, gender, and performance, as well as the political and social contexts of theatrical practices.

Research topics

• History
• Art history
• Sociology
• Art
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Gastroenterology
• Environmental science
• Mechanical engineering
• Gender studies

Selected publications

• Liberal Lives and Activist Repertoires

  2023 · 25 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  This ambitious study traces the strategies of human rights activists to show how world-changing reform movements were shaped by women and men from modest backgrounds who were deeply attuned to the power of performance. Tracy C. Davis explores nineteenth-century reform campaigns through the pioneering work of a family of activists – prominent anti-slavery lecturer George Thompson, his daughter Amelia (the first female theatre and music critic for a British daily newspaper) and her husband, the po…

  PublisherDOI

• The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography

  Routledge eBooks · 2020 · 24 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Models occupy a central role in the history of theatre and performance. In contrast to distinctions between models of something that exists and models for some prospective reality, this chapter argues that shifting between models-of and models-for is an inherent quality of a model as an autonomous form. In other words, the repurposing of models is part and parcel of their function. Three categories of models are considered: 1) material models as objects of theatre and performance historiography…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Skills and strategies of activist mermaids: from pretty to powerful pictures

  Text and Performance Quarterly · 2021-10-02 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  One of the most noteworthy characteristics of the mermaiding community, which has arisen since the early 2000s when self-styled performers started to impersonate the mermaid myth, consists in the performers positioning of themselves as ocean conservation advocates. Pictures constitute a main resource for this advocacy. But how can pretty pictures become powerful tools drawing attention to the critical state of the climate? What does it take to make and script such pictures? Which skills are nece…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mermaids as market creators: Cultural entrepreneurship in an emerging practice

  International Journal of Cultural Studies · 2021-10-19 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  With the example of the emergence of professional mermaids, this article shows how primarily young, female enterprising performers developed a new aesthetic category, generated employment from it, and in that way created a market for their services and products. To conceptualize this development, the article employs the Callonian program in market studies into research on cultural entrepreneurship, highlighting that markets are constantly in-the-making and innovation processes cannot be ascribed…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Theatricality and Performativity: Writings on Texture from Plato’s Cave to Urban Activism

  Contemporary Theatre Review · 2019-01-02 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  "Theatricality and Performativity: Writings on Texture from Plato’s Cave to Urban Activism." Contemporary Theatre Review, 29(1), pp. 95–96

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kim Marra

  University of Iowa

  500 shared

• Philip Auslander

  500 shared

• Laurence Senelick

  Tufts University

  492 shared

• Gary M. Williams

  400 shared

• Harry J. Elam

  400 shared

• Russ Vince

  300 shared

• Ellen Hause

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  200 shared

• Jason Garrett

  Stanford University

  200 shared

Education

• PhD, Theatre Studies

  University of Warwick

  1984

Awards & honors

• Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship, Harvard University (199…
• American Philosophical Society Research Grant (1994-95)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship (1…
• George Freedley Memorial Award (Theatre Library Association)…
• Clarence Ver Steeg Graduate Faculty Award (Northwestern Univ…

Similar researchers at Northwestern University

• Matthew Davish-68
• Rachel Jamison Websterh-55
• Julia Sternh-40