Academic specialty?
Performance Studies, Rhetoric, Gender, Nonverbal and intercultural Communication

Major publications/accomplishments:
My book, When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators, U of Michigan Press. In 2010-2011 I was awarded a Visiting Professorship in North American Studies at the British Library for my current research project, “Performing Race and Reading Antebellum Bodies.”

Interesting hobbies?
Performance, Reading, Traveling

Why did you go into your field?
I have always been fascinated with performance history and public address. I have great passion for archival research, hunting through old manuscripts and letters. In my own family my grandfather was a Coney Island barker, my great aunt recited poetry in the streets.

Favorite thing about NY/Long Island region
The opportunity for a diverse student body, pulling from all over the New York region and beyond.

Favorite campus spot: 
Anywhere outdoors.

What general advice about college would you give students?
Find your passion and a way to change the world. 

What do you hope your students learn from you?
That we are all communicating and performing all the time, in our everyday lives. Understanding and mastering this, and responding to the messages others perform is not only an art, it is a basic part of the human experience.

What general advice about college would you give students?
Find your passion and a way to change the world.  Through any discipline students can find a way to shape the world for the better.

Favorite (short) Hofstra story:
I was very proud when I directed Democracy in Performance during the Presidential Debates in 2008 and 2012. Current students in my Performance History classes and alumni taught years earlier performed together as historical characters whose issues were relevant to the current election.

What do you take the most “Pride” in?
I take great personal pride in inspiring and mentoring students, helping them to become confident, dynamic, and articulate communicators, and encouraging them to use these skills to change the world for the better.

What have you found as your “Purpose”?
Showing students how they can have an active role in changing the world around them by both understanding the historical performances of others and the impact of these upon earlier audiences, and mastering these skills for themselves.