Joseph Cermatori
Associate Professor
A.B., Princeton University
M.F.A., Yale University
Ph.D., Columbia University
Office: Palamountain 316
Phone: (518) 580-5163
Email: jcermato@mblayst.com
Teaching and Research Interests:
- Comparative Literature
- Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Critical Theory
- Modern and Contemporary Drama
- Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama
- Opera and Music-Theatre
- Media and Performance Studies
- Queer Theory and Gender Studies
Publications
Book:
- Baroque Modernity: An Aesthetics of Theater (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, November 2021)
Articles:
- “Seeking the Universal Amid Ruins: On Walter Benjamin’s Philosophy of Journal Editing (circa 1922),”CoSMO: Comparative Studies in Modernism 22 (Spring 2023): 68–77.
- “Homage to Hans-Thies Lehmann: Remembering the Origins of Postdramatic Theatre,” CoSMO: Comparative Studies in Modernism 21 (Fall 2022): 21–26.
- “On Learning How to Act: A Reply to Adam Phillips,” Salmagundi 214–15 (Spring-Summer 2022): 197–200.
- “Thornton Wilder’s Baroque Vision,” PMLA 136.2 (March 2021): 246–48.
- “Allegories of Spectatorship: On Michael Fried’s Dramatic Theory,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 32.2 (Spring 2018): 89–103.
Reviews:
- Shannon Jackson, Back Stages: Essays across Art, Performance, and Public Life (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2023), Modern Drama 66.2 (September 2023): 438–440.
- Florian Walzacher, ed., The Life and Work of Nature Theatre of Oklahoma (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2019), TDR: The Drama Review 65.2 (Summer 2021): 183–85.
- Penny Farfan, Performing Queer Modernism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), Criticism 61.3 (Summer 2019): 417–20.
- "Walter Benjamin, Fabulist" (multi-book review essay), Salmagundi 199 (Summer 2018): 214–224.
Other Publications:
- Recent theater and performance criticism in The New York Times and PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art
Selected Honors and Awards:
- Anna Balakian First Book Prize honorable mention, International Comparative Literature Association, 2022.
- Summer Research Fellowship, Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 2022.
- Helen Tartar First Book Award and Subvention, American Comparative Literature Association, 2021.
- Faculty Development Grant, Skidmore College, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021.
Courses Taught:
- SSP 100: Myth and Modernity
- GN 151: English Literary Studies Colloquium
- EN 105: Writing Seminar
- EN 110: Introduction to Literary Studies
- EN 215: Drama
- EN 225: Introduction to Shakespeare
- EN 229: Queer Theatre and Performance
- EN 251: Special Studies in Creative Writing
- EN 339: Queer Theories (and Practices)
- EN 346: Special Studies in Early Modern Drama
- EN 339: Drama and Modernism
- EN 364: Contemporary Theater and Drama
- EN 375: Literature and Philosophy
