Felicity Nussbaum, The Forgotten Tragic Muse, Mary Anne Yates and Oriental Drama

Professor Felicity Nussbaum, Distinguished Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles This specialist academic conference developed themes raised in the exhibition The First Actresses: Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons. Speakers, including Professors Felicity Nussbaum (UCLA) and Joseph Roach (Yale), explored and problematised ideas of ‘celebrity’ culture and the symbolic, allegorical and discursive functions of portraits of women players. Focusing on visual representation, the conference brought together the research skills of international specialists in the different disciplines of theatre and performance studies, literature, music history and art history, deploying innovative interdisciplinary approaches in the understanding of portraiture and its historical meanings. In partnership with The Open University