John O'Brien

Department of English, University of Virginia

"Infamous Harlequin Mimicries"

Thursday, March 8, 2007

3:30 PM

Plangere Conference Room

Murray Hall, Room 305

John O’Brien is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Virginia. He received his B.A. at Williams College and his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago.  Professor O’Brien has published articles in ELH, Eighteenth-Century Studies, and The Cambridge Companion to the British Stage, and is the editor of Susanna Centlivre’s play The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret (Broadview Press, 2003). His book, Harlequin Britain: Pantomime and Entertainment, 1690-1790 (John Hopkins University Press, 2004), discusses the emergence and rapid popularity, as well as the cultural threat, of pantomime on the stage in eighteenth-century England. The American Historical Review calls Harlequin Britain “an original important contribution to the history of the body and to political culture,” and the Scriblerian calls it “a fascinating investigation of a subgenre of British theater.”

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Reading materials are available in the Graduate Program Office (Murray 121B).

Contact: Alan Herring (alan.herring@rutgers.edu)  |   Bliss Kern (bkern@eden.rutgers.edu)