Doctoral Student Fellow
PhD Candidate, Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture, Graduate School of Arts & Science
Project: Re-membering the body: the Epic, the Tragic, and the Blue Note in French Language Theater
Rachel M. Watson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture of New York University, where she studies 20th and 21st century French and Francophone theatre, text and performance. A confluence of praxis and academic study informs her work, as she trained as an actor at Dartmouth College, the National Theater Institute, and the École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Her master’s thesis on the Théâtre du Soleil investigates space as an experimental tool for establishing new forms of spectatorship. Her current interests include theories of textuality and embodiment as they relate to dramatic writing and performance. Her Ph.D. thesis examines embodied memory and intermediality in works by Wajdi Mouawad, Koffi Kwahulé, and the Théâtre du Soleil.