Catherine Burroughs

Catherine Burroughs is a Professor Emeritus of English at Wells College and has been appointed Courtesy Professor in the English and the Performing Arts and Media Studies departments at Cornell University. 

Throughout her career, she has focused on the contributions to theatre and playwrighting of women writers between 1750 and 1830. Her book, Closet Stages: Joanna Baillie and the Theater Theory of British Romantic Women Writers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997), helped to make Baillie canonical and encouraged scholarship on theatre theorists of the Romantic period and the broader topic of gender and the stage. In addition to her many articles on British Romantic theatre and drama, publications include: Reading the Social Body (Co-Ed., University of Iowa Press, 1993); Women in British Romantic Theatre: Drama, Performance, and Society, 1790–1840 (Ed., Cambridge University Press, 2000; re-printed in Paper 2006); Approaches to Teaching Early British Women Playwrights (Modern Language Association, 2010); and Closet Drama: History, Theory, Form(Routledge, 2019). She has in progress Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism (co-ed. with Ellen Gainor) and is also a member of Actors' Equity Association.

Term expires December 31, 2021.