My dissertation addresses the limitations of public speech as traditionally defined to determine how women exert public influence. Public outspokenness often violates sexual norms by which women are commonly recognized. Yet public talk determines democratic participation. Using a theatrical model of stage entrance and speech act theory, I examine how three exceptional American women, Mary McCarthy, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Patricia Williams, cope with this paradoxical dilemma. The performative examples by which these women are recognized publicly derive as much from nonverbal acts as their spoken words. Consequently, my analysis considers polysemous systems which coincide with the spoken word: tone, bodily deportment, gesture, dress, scenic effects, etc. Further, I introduce the concept of performative oscillation as adaptive behavior that reconciles mutually exclusive positions (in this case, feminine stereotype and masculinized rhetorical facility) by demonstrating both simultaneously.

Certificate in Gender Studies

Awarded University Fellowship

Women's Studies Visiting Scholars Fellowship, Newcomb College Center for Research on Women, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, 2000-2001.

University Fellow, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1995-1996

Directed THE COMEDY OF ERRORS, CTM, Madison Civic Center, July 2003.

Adapted and directed premiere stage workshop of Assia Djebar's novel, WOMEN OF ALGIERS IN THEIR APARTMENT, Louisiana State University Speech Communication Department, Baton Rouge, LA, April 2001.

Guest playwright company reading of my original one-person show, MARY McCARTHY: HIGH WIRE ACT, Abingdon Theater Company, New York, NY, 1997.

Adapted, directed, and choreographed ANIMAL HAPPINESS, sponsored collaboratively by the Northwestern University Performance Studies and Dance Departments, Evanston, IL, Winter, 1998.

Choreographed WOOF!, Northwestern University Dance Ensemble, Evanston, IL, Spring, 1997.

Performer, Jeanette Winterson's WRITTEN ON THE BODY, Performance Studies Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, Winter 1996.

Performer, Street Signs production of TALES OF THE LOST FORMICANS, Straw Dog Theater, Chicago, IL, 1996.

Instructor, Department of Speech Communication, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge:

SPCM 2040 "Performing Literature": An undergraduate course which studies literature through live performance and critical analysis.

SPCM 2012 "Introduction to Film": An undergraduate course which examines the nature and function of film as a mode of communication through screenings, lectures, and workshops.

Instructor, Department of Performance Studies, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois:

GSP A03 "The Analysis and Performance of Literature": A required undergraduate course which explores poetry, narrative fiction, and nonfiction through performance and critical analysis. Each student writes, produces and performs an original one-person show.

New Woman Magazine, Assistant to Fashion and Beauty Editors,
New York, NY.

Editing; layout; model interviews and hire; research; superintending fashion and beauty photographic sessions; fieldwork; reportage.