Cecilia Feilla
Title
Associate Professor of English and World LiteraturesAssociate Professor of Theatre Arts
Department
Theatre ArtsWriting, Literature, and Language
Phone
646 393-4122About
Dr. Feilla specializes in comparative drama, theatre, and performance from the 17th-century to the present with emphasis on theatre of the French Revolution, adaptation studies, genre studies, and global legacies of the French Revolution. She is an award-winning writer and teacher whose courses include World Drama, Theatre Histories I & II, French Neoclassical Theatre, New York City Seminar, Themes in World Literature, and Literature & Revolution, among many others. She has been a research fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC; fellow at the Second Book Institute at the University of Tulsa; scholar-in-residence at New York University; and research fellow at the Collegium Philosophiae Transatlanticum at the Philipps Universität-Marburg, Germany. Her work has appeared in academic journals such as New Literary History, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Eighteenth-Century Life, The Yale Journal of Criticism, Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Theatre Journal, Transformations, and Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, as well as in various collected volumes, including The Last Scene of All: Representing Death on the Western Stage (2022) and Theatre, Performance, Revolution (forthcoming). Her books include The Sentimental Theater of the French Revolution (2013; 2016), a critical edition of the novel, The Indian Tribe, or Edouard and Stellina by Lucien Bonaparte (2006), and a forthcoming monograph on The Reinvention of Love: Stage Adaptations of the Abelard and Heloise Story. She is the former Director of British Literatures for the Northeast Modern Language Association (2008-2010), Director of Learning Communities (2010-2013), and Director of Assessment at Marymount (2017-2020).
Degree(s)
B.A., University of Michigan
M.A., New York University
Ph.D., New York University
Recent Work
Books
The Reinvention of Love: Stage Adaptations of the Abelard and Heloise Story (forthcoming Palgrave)
The Sentimental Theater of the French Revolution (Ashgate; Routledge, 2013)
Critical edition of La Tribu indienne, ou Edouard et Stellina by Lucien Bonaparte (MHRA 2006)
Peer-reviewed journal articles
“Essential Workers of the Palais Royal: Prostitution and the Public Good in French Revolutionary Drama,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 57.1 (Fall 2023)
“Future Perfect History: Historiography and Republican Space-Time in French Revolutionary Theater,” 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,” Nineteenth-Century French Studies, special issue on the Paris Commune 43.3&4 (Spring & Summer 2021): 639-57.
“Pop!: Taking Learning Beyond the Classroom through Multimodal Pop-ups,” co-authored with Magdalena Maczynska, Transformations: Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 30.1 (2020): 35-46.
“From Classroom to Coffee House: An Immersive Model for Teaching the Eighteenth Century.” Teaching the Eighteenth Century: Innovative Course Design 17 (2020).
Chapters in books
“Repeat Performances: Rehearsing the French Revolution in late Qing Chinese Theatre,” Theatre, Performance, Revolution, ed. Logan Connors, Lillian Manzor, Emily Sahakian, Routledge, forthcoming.
“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. Jessica Goodman, Legenda, 2022.
Book Reviews
Review of Dramatic Justice: Trial by Theater in the Age of the French Revolution by Yann Robert (University of Pennsylvania Press), Theatre Survey vol. 63, no. 1 (2021): 126-28.
Review of Gender and Religious Life in French Revolutionary Drama by Annelle Curulla (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment), Theatre Journal vol. 72, no. 2 (2020): 259-60.
Awards & Fellowships
2023 Fellowship, Second Book Institute, University of Tulsa
2023 Senior Faculty Leave Fellowship, Marymount Manhattan College
2021 Runner-up, Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing
2020 Innovative Course Design Prize, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
2018 Teaching Innovation Award, Center for Teaching Innovation & Excellence (C-TIE)
2018 Sokol Research Grant, Marymount Manhattan College
2017 Award for Outstanding Faculty Member, Humanities & Social Sciences Division, Marymount Manhattan College
2017 Summer Andrew W. Mellon Innovation Grant
Research
Cecilia Feilla’s research interests include French theatre, drama, and performance from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries with a special focus on theatre of the French Revolution, adaptation studies, genre studies, and global legacies of the French Revolution. She is currently completing a book on The Reinvention of Love: Stage Adaptations of the Abelard and Heloise Story.
Teaching
THTR 465 ADV: French Classical Theatre
THTR 231 Theatre Histories II
THTR 230 Theatre Histories I
NYC 102 New York City Seminar
EWL 498 Honors Independent Study
EWL 495 Teaching Apprenticeship
EWL 419 Hugo Seminar
EWL 370 Professional Practices
EWL 353: Modern European Fiction
EWL 339 Literature & Business (Money, Money, Money: Literature and the American Dream)
EWL 332 Detective Narratives
EWL 331 Literature and Revolution (MMCS)
EWL 325 Gothic Fiction
EWL 324 World Drama
EWL 317 Modernity & the Rise of Urban Literature (Eighteenth-Century Literature)
EWL 250 Special Topics in Historical Literary Studies
EWL 213 European Romanticism
EWL 211 Classical Literature
EWL 207 Introduction to Theory
EWL 125 The Literary Imagination
EWL 110 Reading World Literature I
ENG 420 Senior Seminar
ENG 401 Romanticism
ENG 398 Independent Study
ENG 382 Classical Literature
ENG 353 Modern European Fiction
ENG 311 Shakespeare
ENG 307 Restoration & Eighteenth-Century British Literature
ENG 305 Renaissance Literature
ENG 298 The Artist and Writer in Paris (study abroad)
ENG 185 Introduction to Literary Studies
ENG 120 Literary Analysis II
ENG 110 Story, Play & Film
WRIT 101 Writing Seminar I
WRIT 102 Writing Seminar II
Professional Experience
Director of Assessment, Marymount Manhattan College (2017-2020)
Chair, Department of English & World Literatures, Marymount Manhattan College (2012-2015)
Director of Learning Communities, Marymount Manhattan College (2010-2013)
Director of British Literatures, Northeast Modern Language Association (2008-2010)