Kirsten Pullen

Biography

Kirsten Pullen came to Illinois Theatre after service as a professor of Performance Studies at Texas A&M University. She was director of Graduate Studies for Texas A&M’s MA in Performance Studies program from its inception in 2010. From 2012 to 2014, Dr. Pullen directed A&M’s Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts (AVPA). Before joining Texas A&M, she was assistant professor of English at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Pullen holds a PhD and an MA in Theatre Research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a performance historian with particular emphasis on female performers and performance theory in the 20th–21st century United States. Kirsten is the author of Actresses and Whores: On Stage and In Society (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Like a Natural Woman: Spectacular Female Performance in Classical Hollywood (Rutgers University Press, 2014), plus numerous articles and book chapters. She is a prolific conference presenter and has been active in the American Society for Theatre Research, serving as a member of its Executive Committee from 2011–2014.