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Claire Sommers’ research and teaching focus on early modern literature and drama, classical literature and its reception, theater and performance studies, adaptation studies, and critical theory.
Dr. Sommers’ research reframes the early modern reception of the classics in order to yield new insights into contemporary theoretical discourses. Her recently submitted book manuscript Chimeras, Centaurs, and Satyrs: Creating Hybrid Texts in Antiquity and Early Modern England recovers an often overlooked connotation of the ancient Greek word hybris to argue that hybridity functioned as a mode of metatextual engagement and figure of hermeneutic innovation in classical and early modern literature. By examining the depiction of multiform creatures in ancient political, scientific, geographic, and philosophic treatises, Dr. Sommers rejects the common association of hybris with violence, corruption, and shame and instead centers an often overlooked but equally valid connotation of the concept: surpassing human limitations. Her study draws on this revised understanding of hybris to designate a new literary classification called “hybrid texts,” works that exhibit their composite nature in four registers: they pivot around composite creatures such as the satyr and centaur; they emphasize the indeterminacy of linguistic meaning; they integrate several media including performance, verse, music, and the visual arts; and most significantly, they synthesize genres by enacting a shift from tragedy to comedy. With their demonstration of the composite’s capacity to abrogate constraint, these works assert the hybrid as a vehicle of creative transcendence.
Dr. Sommers' current research project Drama Queens: Cleopatra Stars as Elizabeth I, inspired by the eponymous course that she teaches, examines 16th and 17th century English theatrical interpretations of Cleopatra to argue that these dramatic versions of the Egyptian queen functioned as an alternate history of Elizabeth. Her study shows that these dramas juxtapose not only the annexation of Egypt with the emergence of the British empire but also the inconsistent portrayal of Cleopatra with the more assured regulation of Elizabeth’s iconography. By drawing on contemporary celebrity studies, Dr. Sommers asserts that early modern dramatists acribe these fluctuations in Cleopatra’s portrayal to her various assignations and, in so doing, conflate Elizabeth’s preservation of her virginity with the preservation of her legacy. At the same time, this study shows that Cleopatra’s shifting interpretation enabled her to act as a figuration of Elizabeth, which in turn allowed early modern playwrights to examine the British monarch without disrupting the image that she had so meticulously created. Drama Queens thus posits that the deployment of Cleopatra as a theatrical cipher for Elizabeth is itself a testament to the proficiency with which the English queen constructed her own celebrity status.
Dr. Sommers encourages her students to see writers as readers who adapted older works to yield new insights into their own era and charges her classes to read earlier texts in order to better understand their own world and lived experiences. She teaches a wide variety of classes at WashU including the special topics courses “Drama Queens: Cleopatra in Elizabethan England,” “Revision and Revival: Stages of Change in Theatrical Performance,” “Shakespeare: Page to Stage to Screen and Everything in Between,” “From Temples to Tik Tok: Celebrities and Stardom in Historical Practice,” “It’s Broadway Baby! The Magic and Making of the Musical,” and “Shakespeare: The Godly and the Grotesque” in addition to the foundational surveys “Early Texts and Contexts” and “Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies.” She also teaches the Ampersand course “Shakespeare’s Globe: All the World’s a Stage” and is the faculty advisor for its accompanying “Shakespeare’s Globe” summer study abroad program in London and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Dr. Sommers is focused extensively on generating undergraduate engagement and enrollment for both of her departments and currently serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies of Drama. She is also the faculty advisor for the English Honor Society Sigma Tau Delta and the chapter founder and faculty advisor for the Theatre Honor Society Alpha Psi Omega. Outside of WashU, Dr. Sommers is the current chair of the Modern Language Association’s Delegate Assembly Organization Committee and previously served as the Exhibits and Professional Development Coordinator for the Northeast Modern Language Association. Before arriving at WashU, she created and served as Deputy Director of the Critical Theory Certificate at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her work has been published by Renaisance Drama, Arion, and Routledge.
Selected Courses
DRAMA 2305 Shakespeare: Page to Stage to Screen and Everything in Between
Over 400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s plays continue to be some of the most widely read and performed in the English language. It is perhaps for this reason that Shakespeare’s plays have continued to shape subsequent theatrical and film productions. This course will examine the adaptations of Shakespeare’s work that have originated on the Broadway stage and in Hollywood movie studios. We will look at the many alterations that were made to Shakespeare’s work from shifted settings to younger characters to the addition of music to modernized dialogue. We will consider how these adaptations link the early modern period with our own by examining how they build upon the plays’ engagements with love and family as well as social issues race, gender, and social class. Furthering this connection, we will explore how these adaptations replicate Shakespeare’s creation of his plays by revising earlier source materials. Most importantly, we think about how these adaptations simultaneously make Shakespeare’s more accessible and current for a contemporary audience while also serving to certify the timelessness of these stories.
DRAMA 2306 It’s Broadway Baby! The Magic and Making of the Musical
Music has always played a prominent role in the theatre, from the harps and flutes that accompanied the earliest ancient Greek dramas to the operas that proliferated throughout the 18th and 19th centuries to the Rockettes who still perform at Radio City today. But the most popular combination of music and drama continues to be the Broadway musical. In this course, we will look at some of the most popular musicals of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will watch stage and film versions of these musicals, focusing on how their deployment of song, scenery, dialogue, and dance coalesce to create a cohesive narrative, convey sociopolitical commentary, and evoke an emotional response. We will also look at the literary and historical sources of these musicals to help us understand the process by which their composers adapted them for performance. At the same time, we will consider how musicals have evolved both to include a greater diversity of race and gender identities and to engage with new cultural and media contexts. Finally, we will discover together why the musical—so often our first encounter with live performance—continues to capture our imaginations and inspire a lifelong love of the theatre.
DRAMA 3XXX Shakespeare: The Godly and the Grotesque
While Shakespeare is celebrated for his realistic depictions of characters, events, and emotions, his work is filled with other-worldly elements, including sorcery, oracles, myths, and grotesque creatures. This course will explore Shakespeare's use of the fantastic, the unnatural, and the monstrous. Reading a wide selection of comedy, tragedy, and history, we will consider Shakespeare's often contradictory attitude to the supernatural: on one hand, a source of evil, villainy, and perversion, and, on the other, a symbol of the divine and a means of surpassing the humanly possible. We will look at how Shakespeare used monstrous imagery to reflect upon his own work and the nature of theatre itself. Finally, we will examine how Shakespeare's allusions to the unnatural allowed him to critique and engage with historical sources as well as contemporary issues such as gender, politics, and globalization. Readings may include "Antony and Cleopatra," "Othello," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Tempest," "Coriolanus," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Winter's Tale," and "Richard III." Three short response papers; midterm and final papers; and a presentation introducing one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.
DRAMA 3311 Revision and Revival: Stages of Change in Theatrical Performance (WI)
The very nature of live theater means that no two performances of the same show will ever be truly identical. But while some alterations are incidental, others represent a deliberate modification of the dramatic work. This writing-intensive course will examine the many types of revision that are deployed as part of theatrical practice. Using works from several genres, media, cultures, and time periods as case studies, we will gain new insights into the creative process by charting the amendments made not only during the various stages of the play’s initial production--its composition, its rehearsals, its workshops, and its early performances—but also the more significant modifications adopted by subsequent adaptations and revivals. We will discuss plays that are rewritten in order to reflect new historical contexts and audience sensibilities, paying special attention to revisions that engage with emergent social and political realities. We will also emphasize the repossession that occurs as new productions seek to include a greater diversity of racial and gender identities. We will also consider the revisions enabled by technological innovations as well as those necessitated by translation in global productions. Finally, as a writing intensive course, students will reenact the very process that we are studying by performing acts of revision on their own work.
ELIT 3524 Topics in Literature: Drama Queens: Cleopatra in Elizabethan England
Cleopatra, queen of the Nile, has become famous for her romantic liaisons, political maneuvering, and her death by snake bite. Yet Cleopatra was also a formidable military strategist, a powerful leader who studied medicine and spoke nearly a dozen languages. Most importantly, Cleopatra was the prototype for depicting strong women on the throne. This course will explore how Early Modern writers re-imagined Cleopatra in the Renaissance, a time which saw another strong queen, Elizabeth I, rise to power. We will pay special attention to how writers used Cleopatra to engage with Early Modern issues of globalization, gender, history, and politics. Finally, we will think about how Shakespeare and his contemporaries contrasted the exotic and sometimes scandalous Cleopatra with the virginal Queen Elizabeth. 3 short response papers; midterm and final papers; and a presentation introducing one of the assigned readings. First-year and/or students with no prior knowledge of this topic are encouraged to enroll.
