Women, Performance and the Material of Memory

Laura Engel is a Professor in the English Department at Duquesne University, where she specializes in eighteenth-century British literature and theater. She is the author of Austen, Actresses, and Accessories: Much Ado about Muffs (Palgrave Pivot, 2015), Fashioning Celebrity: Eighteenth-Century British Actresses and Strategies for Image Making (2011), and co-editor with Elaine McGirr of Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660-1830 (2014).

“The materials of memory provide this book’s original and ambitious structural scaffolding. … Engel’s sense of wonder at the materials of memory is everywhere apparent, and her eloquent appreciation of their research potential is one of the abiding joys of this book.” (Leslie Ritchie, ABO, Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, Vol. 11 (1), 2021)“This book itself models a practice of scholarship, one that pulls together stories of creative women’s lives as they unfold to the scholar in moments of archival discovery, spectatorial surprise, and uncanny reiteration of beaten paths. On that score, Women, Performance and the Material of Memory offers rich reading.” (Andrea Zemgulys, Victorian Studies, Vol. 62 (3), 2020)

• 1. Introduction: The Archival Tourist.- 2. Elizabeth Inchbald's Pocket Diaries.- 3. Sir Thomas Lawrence's Portraits of the Siddons Sisters.- 4. The Countess of Blessington and Magic Lanterns.- 5. Women Artists, Silhouettes, and Waxworks.- 6. Amelia M. Watson's Photographs.- 7. Epilogue: The Sisi Experience.