Department of Music

Dissertation: "Music, Dance, and Female Creativity in Early Twentieth-Century American Performance"

Placement: Assistant Professor/Chair of Film & Media Studies and Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, Colgate University (Hamilton, NY)

Bio Information:

Mary was a Presidential Fellow and Ph.D. graduate in Critical and Comparative Studies in Music at the University of Virginia. Originally from New Jersey, Mary has a B.A. in music and women's studies from Rutgers University. Mary's research interests include nineteenth- and early twentieth-century opera and dance, feminist theory and women in performances, and issues of vocality and embodiment. She has presented papers on the Salome character in early twentieth century American culture, vocal and corporeal interactions among female characters in Auber's La Muette de Portici, and Anna Pavlova's appearance in Lois Weber's opera-film "The Dumb Girl of Portici"; her work on La Muette was awarded the AMS Capital Chapter's Lowens Award. Mary has taught courses including Basic Musical Skills, Entertainment Yesterday: Stage and Screen at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, and Dance, Music, and Culture; she's also a co-founder of the South Central Graduate Music Consortium, a collaboration between students at the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina ­ Chapel Hill, and Duke University. In her spare time, Mary enjoys exploring her own embodiment through Pilates, in dance classes, and while out running.