Dr Fiona Gregory
PhD (Australian National University), BA, Hons (Australian National University)
Fiona Gregory curriculum vitae [
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Biography
My interest in theatre history and literature was developed during undergraduate studies in drama and English. However it was the opportunity to uncover lost stories in the letters and scrapbooks of long-forgotten performers during postgraduate fieldwork at the British Library and New York Public Library that convinced me to pursue an academic career.
I received my Ph.D from the Australian National University, working on theatre historiography within the English program. My research has continued in an interdisciplinary mode, bringing together areas such as Elizabethan performance, nineteenth-century cultural history and classical Hollywood cinema. My current research project is a wide-ranging study of actresses and mental illness, drawing on historical examples and literary and cultural representations to consider the intersections of ‘hysteria’ and the ‘histrionic’.
I taught in the School of English, Journalism and European Languages at the University of Tasmania before joining Monash University in 2006. At Monash I have had the pleasure of introducing first-year students to the history of drama and performance. I have also taught units in Elizabethan performance, nineteenth-century literature, modern fiction and British comedy.
Research interests
History of the Actress
My research in this area has explored the impact of a landmark performance on an actress’s career, and issues of celebrity and representation. I am currently working on a monograph exploring mental illness and the performing woman.
Victorian and Edwardian cultural history
My research on the nineteenth-century actress has prompted me to explore other areas of women’s experience around the fin-de-siecle. I am particularly interested in how this cultural moment can be translated for a contemporary audience through performance-based research.
Selected publications
- Gregory, F (2010) ‘An Alternative Ophelia: Mrs Patrick Campbell in Hamlet, 1897’, Under consideration.
- Gregory, F. (2009) ‘John Palgrave Simpson’, in Courtney, A. edited Nineteenth-Century British Dramatists, Detroit, Gale Cengage Learning.
- Gregory, F. (2008) ‘Chasing Modernity: An Expatriate Star’s Return “Home”’, in Dixon, R. and Kelly, V. edited Impact of the Modern: Everyday Modernities in Australia 1890-1960, Sydney, Sydney University Press.
- Gregory, F. (2006) ‘High-Cultural Histrionics: Judith Anderson’s 1955 Tour of Australia’, Australasian Drama Studies,Vol 48, April.