Misty Anderson

Professor of English & Adjunct Professor of Theatre and Religious Studies

Biography

Misty G. Anderson is Professor of English, the James R. Cox Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, and holds courtesy appointments as an Adjunct Professor in both the Theatre and Religious Studies departments at the University of Tennessee. Anderson is the author of Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Enthusiasm, Belief, and the Borders of the Self (Johns Hopkins, 2012) and Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-Century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (Palgrave, 2002). She a co-editor of the two-volume Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama (2017), and Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Performance (2019). She is currently at work on a third book project, God on Stage, and the new R/18 Collective, a consortium of international scholars fostering professional productions of Restoration and eighteenth-century plays relevant to our present conversations about gender, race, sectarianism, nation, and capital

Education

B.A., Yale University, 1989
M.A., Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, 1991

Publications

Books

• The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Performance, co-editor, with Kristina Straub and Daniel O’Quinn. New York: Routledge, 2019.
• The Routledge Anthology and Sourcebook of Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama. (with Kristina Straub and Daniel O’Quinn.)  New York and London: Routledge, 2017.
• Imagining Methodism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Belief, Enthusiasm, and the Borders of the Self  (Johns Hopkins UP, 2012)
• Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-Century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (Palgrave-St. Martin’s Global, 2002)

Digital and Public Scholarship:

• Executive Producer and Writer, The Busy Body in Performance: A Documentary. May 2017 (https://theatre.utk.edu/the-busy-body/ aired publicly on ETPBS).
• Editorials in Huffington Post, Knoxville News Sentinel, Tennesseean
• Director, The Mysterious Mother, Yale Center for British Art, May 2, 2018.
• Dramaturg and Script Editor, The Busy Body, Clarence Brown Theatre, Feb. 2017.
• Dramaturg, Our Country’s Good, Clarence Brown Theatre, University of Tennessee, October 3-20, 2013, and director, The Recruiting Officer, October 11, 2013.

Recent articles

• “Body.” The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Enlightenment Comedy. Elizabeth Kraft. New York and London: Bloomsbury Press, April 2020.
• Evangelical Hair.” The Bloomsbury Anthology of Eighteenth-Century Hair. Joseph Roach and Margaret Powell. New York and London: Bloomsbury Press. 4: 17-38, Dec. 2018.
• “Zombie Sovereignty.” Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700. 40 (2): 105-114, Fall 2016.
• “The Scottish Play: Centlivre and The Wonder of British Nationalism.” Eighteenth Century Fiction, Special Issue, Ed. Daniel O’Quinn 27 (3-4:) 451-478, Spring/Spring 2015. 
• “Unholy Laughter.” Special issue of Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Eugenia Zuroski Jenkins 26 (4): 731-755, Summer 2014.

• “The Genealogies of Georgian Comedy.”  Ed. David Francis Taylor.  The Oxford Handbook to Georgian Theatre.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013.
• “Sacred Satire: Representing Religious Belief in Eighteenth Century Britain.”  Curated gallery show book, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.  September 22, 2011-March 1, 2012.
• “Embodying Centlivre’s Comic Vision: A Bold Stroke for a Wife and The Wonder; a Woman Keeps a Secret in the Classroom. The MLA Guide to Teaching British Women Playwrights of the Restoration and Eighteenth Century. Ed. Bonnie Nelson and Catherine Burroughs. New York: MLA, 2010.
• “Women Playwrights.” Cambridge Companion to British Theatre, 1730-1830. Ed. Jane Moody and Daniel O’Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007: 145-158.
• Baby Talk; or, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Exit.’ ADE Bulletin, 138-139, Fall 2005-Spring 2006

Professional Service

• President, University of Tennessee Faculty Senate, 2018-19
• MLA Executive Committee, Religion and Literature, 2015-2020
• ASECS Executive Board, 2016-2020
• Editor, Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700, July 2003-present
• SEASECS Secretary, 2008-2013
• ASECS Women’s Caucus, Chair, 2015-16, Masquerade Ball 2014, Anniversary Committee, 2009-2010
• Transatlantic Studies Working Group chair, 2015-18
• UT Women’s Leadership Class, 2011-2012
• AAUP President, local chapter, 2002-2003Associate Department Head, English, Dec. 2010-July 2013
• Director of Graduate Studies, Fall 2003-Summer 2007

Awards, Honors & Grants

• 2020    Center for Global Engagement Seed Grant
• 2019    James R. Cox Professorship (2019-2022)
• 2019    SARIF Summer Grant
• 2017    SEC Academic Leadership Class (2017-18)
• 2017    UT Leadership Class (2017-18)
• 2017    Chancellor’s Research Award
• 2017    Haines-Morris Grant (for Austenfest, Knoxville)
• 2016    SARIF grant author (equipment for The Busy Body)
• 2015-   Lindsay Young Professor of English (through 2019
• 2014    Tennessee Humanities Center Fellow
• 2013    College of Arts and Sciences Senior Research Award
• 2013    The D. Allen Carroll Chair of Teaching (through 2015)

Associations & Organizations

• MLA
• ASECS
• SEASECS
• Frances Burney Society
• AAUP

Invited Lectures

• Restoration, Sovereignty, and the Long Restoration.” University of Maryland, College Park, April 28, 2016. Plenary address at conference marking the move of Restoration to Maryland.

• “Rocks and Belief.”  University of Notre Dame Symposium on Religion and Literature, South Bend, Indiana, March 27-28, 2015. Plenary address and all-day seminar.

• “Frances Burney, Dramatist.” The Frances Burney Society Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, October 9, 2014. Plenary address.

• “God on Stage.” McGill University, October 8, 2014. Invited talk.

• “The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret: Centlivre and the Religious Politics of Britishness.”  Columbia University Seminar on 18^th and 19^th-Century Studies, New York, NY, December 12, 2013.  Invited talk.

• “Centlivre and the Religious Politics of Britishness.”  The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, May 3, 2013.  All-day seminar.

• “God on Stage.”  Yale Divinity School, April 20, 2013.  Plenary address.

• “The Scottish Play:  Centlivre and the Wonder of Britishness.”  University of Georgia, January 30, 2013.  Invited talk.

• Masterclass, “Sacred Satire: Representing Religious Belief in Eighteenth Century Britain.” The Lewis Walpole Library, September 30, 2011.  All-day seminar.

• “Actors and Ghosts.”  Yale Divinity School, September 29, 2011.  Invited talk.
• “Johnson Among the Methodists.”  Johnson Society of the Central Region, University of Michigan, April 8, 2011.  Invited talk.
• “Methodistical Sisters and the New Man.”  Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.  April 17, 2010.  All-day seminar.
• “Methodism and the Theater of the Real.”  Robert Penn Warren Humanities Center, Vanderbilt University.  November 4, 2009.  Invited talk.
• “Refreshing Conceptions of the Other,” British Women Writer’s Conference, Plenary Panel. Iowa City.  April 2, 2009.  Plenary talk.
• “Queer as Folk: Methodism and other Technologies of Gender in Henry Fielding.” University of Michigan.  March 12, 2008.  Invited talk.
• “Methodism, Desire, and Henry Fielding.” Nolte-Behrens Lecture, University of Arkansas, Conway, April 5, 2007.  Invited talk.