{"id":6454,"date":"2018-08-29T15:48:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T19:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/english\/?post_type=profile&p=6454"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T14:34:08","slug":"carrie-preston","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/english\/profile\/carrie-preston\/","title":{"rendered":"Carrie Preston"},"content":{"rendered":"

For CV\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n

My research and teaching interests include modernist literature, performance, and dance, feminist and queer theory, border studies, and critical forced displacement studies.\u00a0I have published three monographs: Modernism\u2019s Mythic Pose: Gender, Genre, Solo Performance<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2011) received the De La Torre Bueno Prize in dance studies. Learning to Kneel: Noh, Modernism, and Journeys in Teaching<\/em>\u00a0(Columbia University Press, 2016) was a finalist for the Modernist Studies Association book award. Complicit Participation: The Liberal Audience for Theaters of Racial Justice <\/em>(Oxford University Press, 2024) examines the political and pedagogical work of audience participation, with studies of Jean Genet\u2019s\u00a0The Blacks<\/em>, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins\u2019s\u00a0An Octoroon<\/em>, the 2016 Broadway plays\u00a0Shuffle Along\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Hamilton<\/em>, Anna Deveare Smith\u2019s\u00a0Notes from the Field <\/em>(2015) and Claudia Rankine\u2019s The White Card <\/em>(2019). <\/em><\/p>\n

My co-edited volume Mexico-US, Serbia-EU Border Lives and Works<\/em> will be published by Anthem Press in 2025. I am currently working on a biography of the poet Diane Wakoski, as well as a book using literary and humanistic methods to respond to the refugee regime and advocate for the emerging field of critical forced displacement.<\/p>\n

I teach courses on border studies, forced displacement, and modernist and contemporary literature, drama, and performance. EN465\/665 focuses on the US Southern Border and asks what makes this border so important to US political imaginaries, cultural constructions, and identity performances? Borders studies considers how cultural practices create borders as spaces that: negotiate between national\/cultural belonging and exclusion; question state sovereignty, security, and exceptionalism; and inspire creative literary and activist projects. EN 799 A1: Critical Displacement Studies: Palestinian and Jewish Displacement and Diaspora uses the central example of Jewish and Palestinian displacement and diaspora, to explore the emerging field of critical forced displacement studies. We consider efforts by the UNHCR and NGOs to use theater therapy in refugee camps, the work of documentary filmmakers, and the practices and theories of \u201capplied theater\u201d alongside plays, novels, poems, and stories that depict Jewish and Palestinian diaspora. We ask: What are the ethical implications of making art and theater, writing papers, even teaching seminars about the global challenges of forced displacement?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Selected publications<\/strong><\/p>\n

Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

Complicit Participation: The Liberal Audience for Theater of Racial Justice (Oxford University Press, 2024).<\/p>\n

Mexico-US and Serbia-EU Border Lives and Works (Anthem Press, 2025).<\/p>\n

Learning to Kneel: Noh, Modernism, and Journeys in Teaching (Columbia University Press, 2016).<\/p>\n

Modernism\u2019s Mythic Pose: Gender, Genre, Solo Performance (Oxford University Press, 2011).<\/p>\n

Articles and Essays<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPine Barrens,\u201d in Intercultural Japanese Noh Theatre: Texts and Analyses of English-language Noh, eds. Richard Emmert & Ashley Thorpe (Bloomsbury: Methuen Drama, 2024).<\/p>\n

\u201cShuffle Along (1921) and the Challenges of Black Modernist Performance on the Contemporary Stage,\u201d in Edinburgh Companion to Modernist Drama as Contemporary Theatre, ed. Claire Warden (2023).<\/p>\n

\u201cHonors Liberal Arts for the 21st Century,\u201d in A Comprehensive Guide to Honors Colleges, ed. Richard Badenhausen (National Collegiate Honors Council, 2023).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Humanities of Migration and Health,\u201d in Migration and Health, eds. Sandro Galea, Catherine Ettman, and Muhammad Zaman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022).<\/p>\n

\u201cParticipation, Pandemic, and the Pucker in Taylor Mac\u2019s The Lily\u2019s Revenge\u201d in Taylor Mac, eds. Sean Edgecomb & David Rom\u00e1n (University of Michigan Press, 2022).<\/p>\n

\u201cOzu\u2019s A Story of Floating Weeds and the Art of Being Behind,\u201d in A Modernist Cinema, eds. Scott Klein & Michael Valdez Moses (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).<\/p>\n

\u201cEzra Pound as Noh Student: The Lessons of Hagoromo\u2019s Angel,\u201d Approaches to Teaching Pound, eds. Ira Nadel & Demetres Tryphonopoulos (Modern Language Association, 2021).<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching \u2018Problematic\u2019 Yeats: Relevance without Recuperation,\u201d International Yeats Studies 4.1 (2020): 1-14.<\/p>\n

\u201cGender and Sexuality,\u201d in The New Ezra Pound Studies, ed. Mark Byron (Cambridge University Press, 2019): 196-207.<\/p>\n

\u201cFluidity,\u201d in Reading \u201cThe Waste Land\u201d with the #MeToo Generation, Modernism\/modernity Print Plus, Vol. 4 Cycle 4 (Mar 4, 2019). https:\/\/modernismmodernity.org\/user\/394<\/p>\n

\u201cModernism and Performance: A Conversation with Carrie Preston,\u201d in Modernism on the World Stage, Modernism\/modernity Print Plus, Vol. 4 Cycle 3 (Oct 15, 2019). https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-341064034-729419482<\/p>\n

\u201cBlackfaced at The Blacks: Audience Participation in Jean Genet\u2019s Lessons on Race and Gender,” Modern Drama, 62.1 (2019): 1-22.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweeney Agonistes in Noh Mask: T. S. Eliot, Japanese Noh, and the Fragments of World Drama,\u201d Neohelicon, (online 11 Dec. 2018). 46.1(2019): 97-113<\/p>\n

\u201cHissing, Bidding, and Lynching: Participation in Jacobs-Jenkins\u2019s An Octoroon and the Melodramatics of American Racism,\u201d The Drama Review, 62.4 (2018): 64-80.<\/p>\n

\u201cTranslation in Noh Time,\u201d Modernism\/modernity Print Plus, Vol. 3 Cycle 3 (Aug 20, 2018), https:\/\/modernismmodernity.org\/forums\/posts\/translation-noh-time<\/p>\n

\u201cChapter 8. Dance,\u201d in Cambridge Companion to Modernist Cultures, ed. Celia Marshik (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014): 128-144.<\/p>\n

\u201cModernism\u2019s Dancing Marionettes: Oskar Schlemmer, Michel Fokine, and Ito Michio,\u201d Modernist Cultures 9.1 (2014): 115-133.<\/p>\n

“Michio Ito\u2019s Shadow: Searching for the Transnational in Solo Dance,” in On Stage Alone: Soloists and the Formation of the Modern Dance Canon, eds. Claudia Gitelman & Barbara Palfy (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012): 7-30.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking Direction from Beckett: Noh\/No, Footfalls\/Pas,\u201d in Back to the Beckett Text, ed. Tomasz Wi\u015bniewski (Gdansk: University of Gdansk Press, 2012): 155-78.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoyce\u2019s Reading Bodies and the Kinesthetics of the Modernist Novel,\u201d Twentieth-Century Literature \u00a0\u00a0 55.2 (2009): 232-254.<\/p>\n

\u201cPosing Modernism: Delsartism in Modern Dance and Silent Film,\u201d Theatre Journal 61.2 (2009): 213-233.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Motor in the Soul: Isadora Duncan and Modernist Performance,\u201d Modernism\/modernity 12:2 (2005): 273-289.<\/p>\n

Fellowships and Awards<\/strong><\/p>\n