Amy E. Hughes
Assistant Professor of Theater, City University of New York
Amy E. Hughes is Assistant Professor and Deputy Chair for Graduate Studies in the Department of Theater, Brooklyn College (CUNY). Her work focuses on the relationship between theater/performance and visual, print, and material culture in nineteenth-century America. In her first book, Spectacles of Reform: Theater and Activism in Nineteenth-Century America (University of Michigan Press, 2012), she examines the interpersonal and representational dynamics of the freak show in order to develop a theory of spectacular performance, arguing that the body—as culture’s most conspicuous target for normalization—plays a crucial role in generating our sense of the spectacular. Her essays and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Journal of American Culture, New England Theatre Journal, Performing Arts Resources, and Theatre Journal (among others) as well as two edited collections. In 2010, she was honored with Brooklyn College’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Working Group Affiliation