Emily Klein
Dissertation Abstract Publications Teaching Experience Teaching Philosophy Awards Presentations References		Contact: Carnegie Mellon
		Department of English 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213
		Email: ebklein@andrew.cmu.edu
EDUCATION PhD in English, Literary and Cultural Studies degree expected Spring 2010 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA BA in English, American Literature specialization cum laude June 1999 University of California, Los Angeles International study year at University of Birmingham, England 1997-98 Honors Thesis: “Still Burning for the Ancient Heavenly Connection: Performance and interpretive communities in Ginsberg’s Howl and Kaddish and Kushner’s Angels in America”
DISSERTATION (Abstract here) “Constructing the American Activist: Twentieth Century Political Performances and Discourses of Social Change” Committee: Kathy M. Newman (Chair), Kristina Straub, Jill Dolan (Princeton University)
PUBLICATIONS “Anti-War Activism and The Structures of Trauma in the Plays of Eve Ensler and Kathryn Blume.” Forthcoming chapter in Patriotic Dissent: Theatrical Responses to the War on Terror. Jenny Spencer, ed. University of Michigan Press. “Spectacular Citizenships: Staging Latina Resistance through Urban Performances of Pain” Under consideration for “Gender and the City” special issue of Frontiers. “Pittsburgh in Stages: Two Hundred Years of Theater by Lynne Conner.” Book review. Forthcoming in Theatre Journal, March 2010. “Chaim Noy, A Narrative Community: Voices of Israeli Backpackers.” Book note. Language in Society, 38(3), June 2009. 381-2. “Helen Sauntson and Sakis Kyratzis (eds.), Language, sexualities and desires: Cross- cultural perspectives.” Book note. Language in Society, 37(2), April 2008. 314-5. “Whispering in a Million Ears: Remembering the Intimate Power of Radio.” Review essay. American Quarterly, December 2007. 1291-1301. “Belabored Professions: Narratives of African American Working Womanhood by Xiomara Santamarina and Women, Money and the Law: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Gender, and the Courts by Joyce Warren.” Book review. American Literature, June 2007. 420-422.
AWARDS and GRANTS Schaffer Dissertation Fellowship Summer 2009- 2010 Competitive English department award given to one student per year who demonstrates exceptional promise. Funding supports one year of dissertation completion. Modern Language Association Graduate Student Travel Grant Winter 2008 The Executive Council awards these grants to select advanced graduate students participating in the annual MLA convention. Association for Theatre in Higher Education Graduate Student Grant Summer 2008 Award from the governing council to cover the cost of annual conference registration fees. Graduate Student Small Project Help (GuSH) Grant Spring 2008 Competitive award funded by the Provost's Office to help graduate students complete degree-related research. This award was for support of archival research at the Library of Congress and the George Mason University Special Collections.
PRESENTATIONS
“Constructing Citizenship Through Political Theatre,” American Studies Association Annual Conference, Washington DC, November 2009. “Trauma Queens: Anti-War Activism and The Structures of Trauma in the Plays of Eve Ensler and Kathryn Blume,” Women and Theatre Program of Association for Theatre in Higher Education Preconference, New York, NY, August 2009. “Communicating about Gender in the Global University,” Carnegie Mellon International Communications Symposium, Pittsburgh, PA, June 2009. “Twentieth Century Activist Theatre and the Traumatized Postmodern Subject,” Modern Language Association Annual Conference, American Theatre and Drama Society panel, San Francisco, CA, December 2008. “Tracing a Lineage of Latina Activist Performances: Teatro Luna and Madres de Plaza de Mayo,” Women and Theatre Program of ATHE Preconference, Denver, CO, July 2008. “Literacy Expectations in Introduction to World History Course in Pittsburgh and Qatar,” Co-authored with Robin Reames-Henry, Carnegie Mellon International Communications Symposium, Pittsburgh, PA, June 2007. “The King of the Earth Says Power to the People!: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Political Masculinities,” Schafer Fellow panel, moderated by Lauren Berlant, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March 2007. “Performing Pain: Transmitting Trauma as a Means of Social Change,” Association for Theatre in Higher Education Annual Conference, Latino/a Focus Group panel, Chicago, IL, August 2006. “The Power of Pain: Re-enacting Trauma and Inspiring Activism,” University of Pittsburgh’s Controversies in Theatrical and Dramatic History Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2006. “Stirring Up Trouble: Television Cooking Shows and Changing Representations of the American Housewife,” Southwest Regional Conference of the Popular Culture and American Culture Associations, Albuquerque, NM, February 2006.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE (Teaching Philosophy here) Protest Plays: American Political Theatre, 76-314 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Summer 2009 This survey course examined the dramatic literature of American political theatre over the last 80 years. After a brief introduction to critical performance studies and the histories of epic theatre and theatre of the oppressed, we began by reading plays from the WPA’s Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s. Later, works by Teatro Campesino, Anna Deavere Smith and Moises Kaufman allowed us to consider emerging trends in public social protest theatre and documentary theatre. As students read scripts paired with theoretical texts, they were able to interrogate the question of how performances might support and incite social change. Twentieth Century American Feminism(s) and the Novel, 76-231 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Fall 2008 This course traced a lineage of first and second wave American feminism(s) by coupling what we might term “feminist novels” alongside contemporaneous theoretical and historical texts. Class discussions of Chopin’s The Awakening and Yezierska’s Bread Givers were informed by texts like the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments. Through writing assignments and class projects, students analyzed novelistic themes and imagery that evidenced early stirrings and aftershocks of the women’s suffrage and women’s rights movements. Students learned to employ feminist approaches to interpret questions of class, race and domestic labor in both public and private spheres. Introduction to Performance Studies: EnACTing Social Change, 76-222, 76-340 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Spring 2008, 2009 Two congruent lines of investigation guided our work in this course. First, we mapped the highly contested terrain of the performance studies field. Second, we explored a selection of twentieth-century texts and media that could be understood as activist performances. On a small scale, the course considered how we all perform our identities every day through our gestures, styles, professions, genders, nationalities, races and religions. On a larger scale, we discovered how performance has structured relations of power throughout history via public phenomena like ritual, protest, politics and dramatic productions. Shakespeare Comedies and Romances, 76-247; Histories and Tragedies, 76-245 (Teaching Assistant) Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Fall and Spring 2007-2008 Students in this course confronted the question of how Shakespeare’s plays can seem so relevant to us today even though they were written to address the interests of his first Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences four hundred years ago. We also considered the competing meanings that emerged when we analyzed the plays either as literature or as live, embodied performances. By examining plays within the context of genre, students saw how meaning can be made through adherence to or evasion of formal criteria. Smells Like Teen Spirit: Angst, Youth Culture and the Modern Bildungsroman, 76-216 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Summer 2007 Through a survey of twentieth century American coming of age novels this course explored the changing meanings of young adulthood over the last one hundred years, including the emergence of the term “teenager” and new approaches to the relationship between literature, identity formation, and cultural resistance. Texts included J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Philip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Interpretation and Argument, 76-101 Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA Fall 2004-Spring 2007 Students in this composition course were introduced to fundamental practices of critical reading and academic argument. Writing assignments and lectures were organized around the thematic focus of the course. In the semesters Fall 2004 and Spring 2005 this focus was “Mediation, News and Democracy.” I developed my own syllabus for the semesters Fall 2005 through Spring 2007 with the theme, “My Own Private Appetite: Constructing Cultural, National and Gender Identities Through Food.” English Language and Comprehension Tel Hai College, Kiryat Shmona, Israel Spring 2000 This curriculum was designed to improve the English reading comprehension of Israeli high school and college students preparing for their English language matriculation exams. I taught classes with an emphasis on conversation and reading proficiency and also led tutorials for individuals and small groups.
UNIVERSITY SERVICE and ADMINISTRATION Vice President of Outreach and Development, Women and Theatre Program Association for Theatre in Higher Education August 2008-present Organize conferences, plan outreach initiatives, and develop grant proposals in order to promote and support the organization. Organizer of 2008 Pittsburgh Theatre Studies Colloquium Carnegie Mellon University Spring 2008 Planned and publicized two days of interdepartmental and interuniversity lectures, receptions and colloquia featuring guest scholar, Jill Dolan. Department Representative to the Graduate Student Assembly Carnegie Mellon University August 2007-August 2008 Recruited and chaired English Department Events Committee. Represented English department at Graduate Student Assembly meetings and events. Intercultural Communications Orientation Facilitator Carnegie Mellon University Fall 2007 Facilitated group discussions about graduate student experiences with intercultural exchange. Graduate Advisor to the Pittsburgh Student Chapter of Slow Food USA University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University Fall 2007- 2008 Advised students in their founding of a new convivium. Provided guidance for event planning. Graduate Student Liaison to the Graduate Committee Carnegie Mellon University August 2006-August 2007 Represented the needs and interests of the graduate student community by attending faculty meetings. Evaluated student petitions and helped to revise department graduate handbook. Humanities Center Project Manager Carnegie Mellon University August 2006-August 2007 Organized and promoted seminars for humanities scholars throughout Pittsburgh.
TEACHING INTERESTS American Drama, Chicana/o and Latina/o Drama and Literature, Theatre History of the Americas, Radical Street Theatre: A History of Political Performance, Performance Studies Women’s Literature, Feminist, Masculinities and Gender Studies, Representations of Domestic Labor: Gendering Work in the Private Sphere, Ethnic American Women’s Literature Performance Theory, Literary Theory and Approaches to Cultural Studies Performances and Rhetorics of Trauma, Contemporary Latina Protest and Performance Foodways Studies, Theories of Eating and Culture, Literature of Hunger and Consumption Shakespeare Interpretation and Performance First-year Writing, Introduction to College-Level Interpretation and Argument
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS Modern Language Association Association for Theatre in Higher Education Women and Theatre Program Latina/o Focus Group in Theatre and Performance American Studies Association Popular Culture and American Culture Association
REFERENCES Unless otherwise noted, all addresses are Carnegie Mellon University, Department of English, 259 Baker Hall, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
Kathy Newman (chair) (412) 268-6450 kn4@andrew.cmu.edu Kristina Straub (412) 268-6458 ks3t@andrew.cmu.edu Danielle Wetzel Director, First-Year English Program (412) 268-4468 dfz@andrew.cmu.edu	Jill Dolan Department of English and Theater Princeton University Lewis Center for the Arts 185 Nassau Street Hall Princeton, NJ 08544 (609) 258-4168 jsdolan@princeton.edu Peggy Knapp (412) 268-6453 pk07@andrew.cmu.edu		Michael Witmore Department of English Univ. of Wisconsin Madison 7187 Helen C. White 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706 (608) 263-0567 witmore@wisc.edu