My academic research focuses the intersections between performance and public memory in the United States. My dissertation, “National Acts: Performance, Commemoration, and the Construction of American Public Memory in the Aftermath of the Civil War,” examines three monuments built in the 19th century and how they have been deployed in public discourse through the present day. I defended my dissertation at Northwestern University in late April 2023.
While at Northwestern, I taught two sections of THEA 140-2, “Performing Memorial Mania,” which introduced first year Theatre students to theatre history and literature through plays and theoretical texts that used history and memory as their main subject.
My academic work on art, performance, and public memory more broadly have been published in multiple publications, including:
- “‘We will remember, we will repast’: Performance and the Feeding of Collective Memory in Re.Past.Malaga,” in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 15.2, 2019.
- “Scollay Square, 1880s-1963,” in Atlas of Boston History: The Making of a City, ed. Nancy S. Seasholes, University of Chicago Press, 2019.
- Review of American Slavery and Russian Serfdom in the Post-Emancipation Imagination in Louisiana History, Spring 2021, 62.2
- With Thomas MacMillan, “Labor and Art: Interpreting the Maine Labor Mural Controversy,” in Where Are The Workers: Labor’s Stories at Museums and Historic Sites, edited by Robert Forrant and Mary Anne Trasciatti, University of Illinois Press, 2022
Rebekah (Beka) Bryer 