Degrees: PHD, 1985, New York Univ; MA, 1977, New York Univ; BA, 1976, CUNY City Coll

Bio:

Lisa Merrill, Professor, Department of Speech Comunication, Rhetoric & Performance Studies, (Ph.D., New York University), teaches courses in performance studies, gender and intercultural communication, women's studies, nonverbal communication, rhetoric, public address, and communication theory. Dr. Merrill's ongoing research and publications are in the fields of performance studies, American studies, Victorian studies, and women's studies.

Dr. Merrill has published widely on gender, communication, and performance. Her text, The Power to Communicate: Gender Differences as Barriers (co-authored with Deborah Borisoff) (Waveland Press, 1985, 1991, 1998), was an early investigation of research on gender and communication. Dr. Merrill has explored the interdisciplinary connections between communication, language, and gender in her anthology, Untying the Tongue: Power, Gender and the Word (co-edited with Linda Longmire) (Greenwood Press, 1998). Most recently, Dr. Merrill's critical biography of 19th-century actress Charlotte Cushman, When Romeo was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators (University of Michigan Press, 1999), has been awarded the Joe A. Callaway Prize for Best Book in Theatre or Drama, was nominated for the Theatre Library Award, won the Peter Herman Literary Award, and received much critical acclaim. It has been most favorably reviewed in The Women's Review of Books (July/August 1999), Text and Performance Quarterly (October 1999), Theatre History Studies, 19: 1999, American Theatre, and Lambda Book Report.

Dr. Merrill is book review co-editor for text and performance studies, and is on the editorial board for the Theater in the Americas Series at Southern Illinois University Press.

Dr. Merrill is the basic course director for the Department of Speech Communication, Rhetoric & Performance Studies, and the department internship coordinator. She is also a registered drama therapist.