Cecilia Feilla specializes in theatre of the French Revolution and its global legacies, with emphasis on revolutionary theories of time and performativity, adaptation and genre studies, and labor and gender issues in theatre. Her books include The Sentimental Theater of the French Revolution (2013), Stage Adaptations of the Abelard and Heloise Story: Reinventions of Love (forthcoming), and a critical edition of Lucien Bonaparte’s La Tribu indienne: Edouard et Stellina. She teaches courses on early modern and modern theatre traditions, theory, and adaptation, as well as theatre histories and script analysis.
Research/Publications Highlights
“Repeat Performances: Rehearsing the French Revolution in Late Qing Chinese Theatre” in Theatre and Revolution: Global Perspectives on Performance, Eds. L. Connors, L. Manzor, and E. Sahakian, Routledge, 2026.
“Dangerous Intersections: Sex Work and the Circulation of Wealth in Eighteenth-Century Paris” in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 55 (forthcoming 2026).
“Essential Workers of the Palais Royal: Prostitution and the Public Good in French Revolutionary Drama” in Eighteenth-Century Studies 57.1 (Fall 2023): 43-64.
“Crypts, Corpses, and Living Tombs on Stage during the French Revolution: Crises of Burial and Mourning” in Last Scene of All: Representing Death on the Western Stage, ed. J. Goodman, Legenda, 2022.
“Future Perfect History: Historiography and Republican Space-Time in French Revolutionary Theater” in New Literary History 52.1 (2021): 27-51.
“From ‘female bodhisattva with a she-devil face’ to ‘Female General of the Anarchist Party’: Biographies of Louise Michel in Early 20th-Century China” in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, special issue on the Paris Commune 43.3&4 (Spring & Summer 2021): 639-57.
Departments
Theatre
Awards
- Sokol Research Grant (2025-2026; 2018-2019)
- Second Book Institute Fellowship, University of Tulsa (2023)
- Runner-up, Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing (2021)
- Innovative Course Design Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2019)
- Teaching Innovation Award, Center for Teaching Innovation & Excellence (2019)
- Award for Outstanding Faculty Member, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (2017)
- Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Innovation Grant (2017) and Course Development Grant (2014, 2013)
Research Focus
- Theatre
- French Revolution
- European Enlightenment
- Performance Studies
- THTR 4650: Advanced Studies in Theatre and Performance
- THTR 3973: Topics in Performance Studies
- THTR 2450 Theatre Histories