Presenter bios (in alphabetical order)
R. A. F. Ajith is Assistant Professor of English at the Government Arts and Sciences College, Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, India.
James Armstrong is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre at City College, City University of New York.
Brigitte Bogar has worked as conference organizer for MAPACA, served on their board (2013-2018), and as Area-Chair for Body Art and Musical Theatre. She has lectured/performed/presented widely, both solo and with her late husband Christopher Innes, at invited public lectures/concerts in USA, UK, Canada, Sweden and Denmark (including NEMLA Keynote 2015). Together Bogar and Innes edited Carnival: Theory and Practice (2012), and Shaw Criticism: Music, (2016). She is the guest editor of SHAW 39.1: Shaw and Music, and is currently working on her last book with Innes, Art and Myth: The Operas of R. Murray Schafer. In 2014, she recorded a CD featuring music by GBS. Her recent stage appearances include Sentain in Der fliegende Holländer and Lenora in Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as Elvira in Don Giovanni, Agathe in Der Freischütz, and Gutrune in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
Jen Buckley is Associate Professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, where she teaches courses in modern and contemporary drama and performance. In addition to Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print after 1900 (University of Michigan Press, 2019), she is the author of essays in several edited collections, as well as articles and reviews published in Modernism/modernity, Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, TDR: The Drama Review, SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, Theater, and Comparative Drama. Buckley is the guest editor of SHAW 40.1: Bernard Shaw and New Media (2020). Her current book project is Act Without Words: Speechless Performance on Modern Stages. She is Vice President of the International Shaw Society.
Jesse Hellman is a psychoanalytically-trained psychiatrist in Baltimore, Maryland, who has long been interested in intersections of history, literature, and the creative arts. For many years he photographed for the Peabody Conservatory Opera in Baltimore. Starting with “Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s Enchantress, and the Creation of Pygmalion,” three of his essays have been published in SHAW. Particularly relevant to his presentation this year is “A Protective Shield and Mistrust of Romantic Love: Some Psychological Consequences to Bernard Shaw from the Family Ménage à Trois,” published in 2019.
Wan Jin is a PhD candidate at the School of Foreign Studies at Nanjing University. She is interested in nineteenth century British theatre and cross-cultural theatrical adaptation. Her recent publications on journal include: Hundred-Year History of African American Theatrical Aesthetics, Event and Unnatural Narrative in Edward Albee’s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? Her current project is Gendered Landscapes in Shaw’s Plays. She will in the future dedicate herself into the research of Shaw in contemporary China.
Sharon Klassen is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, where she teaches courses in both academic and practical aspects of theatre. She recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, examining Wilde’s influence on popular comedy in the Edwardian period. One aspect of her current research is the relationship between Shaw and the artist Feliks Topolski, who illustrated Pygmalion, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, and Geneva.
Kay Li is a founding member of the International Shaw Society, and the Project Leader of the SAGITTARIUS—ORION Digitizing Project on Bernard Shaw funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She studies cross-cultural literary encounters and cultural globalization, and is the author of two books: Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-Cultural Encounters (2007) in the University Press of Florida Shaw Series and Bernard Shaw’s Bridges to Chinese Culture (2016) in the Palgrave Macmillan Shaw Series. Li is Adjunct Professor in the Department of English at York University, Toronto, and President of Asian Heritage Month–Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. Her other government-funded projects include the Virtual Museum of Asian Canadian Cultural Heritage (VMACCH), Arts and Artificial Intelligence, and the Asian Heritage Month Festivals.
John McInerney is Professor Emeritus at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), where he taught modern drama, including Shaw, and film criticism for more than forty years. He also worked in University and Community Theatre, as an actor, writer, and director -- work he continues in retirement. Ten of his original plays have been performed in various venues. In addition, McInerney has served as an officer for the ISS, contributed chapters to several published Shaw studies, and directed presentations offered to Shaw Symposium audiences by the “Not Ready for Prime Time Shavians.”
Jean Reynolds is Professor Emerita of English at Polk State College (FL). She is the author of Pygmalion's Wordplay: The Postmodern Shaw (1999) and the co-editor (with D. A. Hadfield) of Shaw and Feminisms: Onstage and Off (2013), as well as several other books and many articles.
Tanner Sebastian is a PhD student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Their work focuses on the Victorian and Edwardian theatre, the fin de siècle, and gender and queer theory.
Lawrence Switzky is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto-Mississauga. His current research examines the place of theatre within the history of mass computation and artificial intelligence. He is the co-editor (with David Kornhaber) of the quarterly journal Modern Drama.
Christopher Wixson is Professor of English and Theatre Arts at Eastern Illinois University. He teaches advanced courses in early modern drama and modernism, script analysis and dramaturgy, and general education courses in writing and literature. He has published widely on twentieth-century British and American drama and is General Editor of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies.
Laurie J. Wolf is Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance at the College of William and Mary, where she teaches Renaissance studies, playwriting and feminist theory. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA, and previously taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of several books on theatre, including Performance Analysis: an Introductory Coursebook, co-edited with Colin Counsell, and Introduction to Theatre: A Direct Approach. Her current book project is Shakespeare in Context, and has also been working on “Legitimate Property of the Public: Nineteenth-Century Biographical Sketches as Cultural Commentary.”
James Armstrong is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre at City College, City University of New York.
Brigitte Bogar has worked as conference organizer for MAPACA, served on their board (2013-2018), and as Area-Chair for Body Art and Musical Theatre. She has lectured/performed/presented widely, both solo and with her late husband Christopher Innes, at invited public lectures/concerts in USA, UK, Canada, Sweden and Denmark (including NEMLA Keynote 2015). Together Bogar and Innes edited Carnival: Theory and Practice (2012), and Shaw Criticism: Music, (2016). She is the guest editor of SHAW 39.1: Shaw and Music, and is currently working on her last book with Innes, Art and Myth: The Operas of R. Murray Schafer. In 2014, she recorded a CD featuring music by GBS. Her recent stage appearances include Sentain in Der fliegende Holländer and Lenora in Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as Elvira in Don Giovanni, Agathe in Der Freischütz, and Gutrune in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung.
Jen Buckley is Associate Professor of English and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, where she teaches courses in modern and contemporary drama and performance. In addition to Beyond Text: Theater and Performance in Print after 1900 (University of Michigan Press, 2019), she is the author of essays in several edited collections, as well as articles and reviews published in Modernism/modernity, Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, TDR: The Drama Review, SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies, Theater, and Comparative Drama. Buckley is the guest editor of SHAW 40.1: Bernard Shaw and New Media (2020). Her current book project is Act Without Words: Speechless Performance on Modern Stages. She is Vice President of the International Shaw Society.
Jesse Hellman is a psychoanalytically-trained psychiatrist in Baltimore, Maryland, who has long been interested in intersections of history, literature, and the creative arts. For many years he photographed for the Peabody Conservatory Opera in Baltimore. Starting with “Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s Enchantress, and the Creation of Pygmalion,” three of his essays have been published in SHAW. Particularly relevant to his presentation this year is “A Protective Shield and Mistrust of Romantic Love: Some Psychological Consequences to Bernard Shaw from the Family Ménage à Trois,” published in 2019.
Wan Jin is a PhD candidate at the School of Foreign Studies at Nanjing University. She is interested in nineteenth century British theatre and cross-cultural theatrical adaptation. Her recent publications on journal include: Hundred-Year History of African American Theatrical Aesthetics, Event and Unnatural Narrative in Edward Albee’s The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? Her current project is Gendered Landscapes in Shaw’s Plays. She will in the future dedicate herself into the research of Shaw in contemporary China.
Sharon Klassen is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, where she teaches courses in both academic and practical aspects of theatre. She recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, examining Wilde’s influence on popular comedy in the Edwardian period. One aspect of her current research is the relationship between Shaw and the artist Feliks Topolski, who illustrated Pygmalion, In Good King Charles’s Golden Days, and Geneva.
Kay Li is a founding member of the International Shaw Society, and the Project Leader of the SAGITTARIUS—ORION Digitizing Project on Bernard Shaw funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She studies cross-cultural literary encounters and cultural globalization, and is the author of two books: Bernard Shaw and China: Cross-Cultural Encounters (2007) in the University Press of Florida Shaw Series and Bernard Shaw’s Bridges to Chinese Culture (2016) in the Palgrave Macmillan Shaw Series. Li is Adjunct Professor in the Department of English at York University, Toronto, and President of Asian Heritage Month–Canadian Foundation for Asian Culture (Central Ontario) Inc. Her other government-funded projects include the Virtual Museum of Asian Canadian Cultural Heritage (VMACCH), Arts and Artificial Intelligence, and the Asian Heritage Month Festivals.
John McInerney is Professor Emeritus at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania), where he taught modern drama, including Shaw, and film criticism for more than forty years. He also worked in University and Community Theatre, as an actor, writer, and director -- work he continues in retirement. Ten of his original plays have been performed in various venues. In addition, McInerney has served as an officer for the ISS, contributed chapters to several published Shaw studies, and directed presentations offered to Shaw Symposium audiences by the “Not Ready for Prime Time Shavians.”
Jean Reynolds is Professor Emerita of English at Polk State College (FL). She is the author of Pygmalion's Wordplay: The Postmodern Shaw (1999) and the co-editor (with D. A. Hadfield) of Shaw and Feminisms: Onstage and Off (2013), as well as several other books and many articles.
Tanner Sebastian is a PhD student at the University of Nevada, Reno. Their work focuses on the Victorian and Edwardian theatre, the fin de siècle, and gender and queer theory.
Lawrence Switzky is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto-Mississauga. His current research examines the place of theatre within the history of mass computation and artificial intelligence. He is the co-editor (with David Kornhaber) of the quarterly journal Modern Drama.
Christopher Wixson is Professor of English and Theatre Arts at Eastern Illinois University. He teaches advanced courses in early modern drama and modernism, script analysis and dramaturgy, and general education courses in writing and literature. He has published widely on twentieth-century British and American drama and is General Editor of SHAW: The Journal of Bernard Shaw Studies.
Laurie J. Wolf is Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance at the College of William and Mary, where she teaches Renaissance studies, playwriting and feminist theory. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA, and previously taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She is the author of several books on theatre, including Performance Analysis: an Introductory Coursebook, co-edited with Colin Counsell, and Introduction to Theatre: A Direct Approach. Her current book project is Shakespeare in Context, and has also been working on “Legitimate Property of the Public: Nineteenth-Century Biographical Sketches as Cultural Commentary.”