Faculty biography - Kelly Stage
Kelly J. Stage graduated
magna cum laude with a B.A. in English and American literature from Harvard and went on to earn her Ph.D. in English, specializing in British Renaissance literature, from New York University. In 2007, Stage became an Assistant Professor of English at Ripon College, where she regularly teaches Shakespeare and the early British literature survey, as well as Renaissance drama, London literature, literary criticism, and first-year literature and composition. Her book-in-progress focuses on urban drama and the culture of playing in London from 1598-1616. In it, Stage proposes that London dramas are part of early modern Londoners’ process of creating and understanding their environment in terms of space, especially social, urban, suburban, public, and private spaces. The theater in this view is a productive enterprise, one which offers a way to see the creation of an urban identity through art’s transformative processes. A shorter project also focusing on London, English drama, and spatial theory has been published in the journal
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 and two additional pieces are forthcoming in essay collections.
While Stage’s academic work shows her investment in the study of early modern London and theater, she also confesses that she is simply in love with modern London. While in graduate school, she worked for three years and served as Associate Director for New York University’s Summer in London Program, part of NYU Global. Through this opportunity, she explored London and took students on excursions to Bath, Canterbury, Dover, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, and Salisbury. Having seen three different groups of students through a summer abroad experience, she is a firm believer in the goals of study abroad and is excited to be a part of the ACM program. She looks forward to helping students navigate the city, learn the tube, tour museums and galleries, and most of all, visit the West End and Southbank theaters. Stage is full of excitement for the 2011 London/Florence program and is practically counting the days until ushering a new group of student travelers into this fascinating city.