Kim Solga
Professor, Program Director, Theatre Studies
PhD, University of Toronto, 2004
MA, King's College London, 1999
MA, Dalhousie, 1998
BA (Hons), University of Alberta, 1996
University College 3425
ksolga@uwo.ca
Hello and welcome!
I’m a teacher and researcher, a performance scholar and a proud feminist. I work on modern feminist performance, on early modern performance and its contemporary iterations, and on contemporary urban performance.
(If you’d like to hear me say why feminism matters to me in everything I do – and in three minutes no less! – click here.)
My most recent solo books are written for “crossover” audiences that include scholars, regular humans, and – of course – students. They include: Women Making Shakespeare in the 21st Century (Cambridge, 2024), Theory for Theatre Studies: Space (Bloomsbury, 2019), and Theatre & Feminism (Palgrave, 2015).
I’m a collaborative scholar and a very keen editor; if I could not collaborate with artists, students, and colleagues on a regular basis, I would probably quit my job. My edited books include Theatre and Performance in the Neoliberal University: Responses to an Academy in Crisis (Routledge, 2020), A Cultural History of Theatre in The Modern Age (Bloomsbury, 2017), the award-winning New Canadian Realisms volumes (with Roberta Barker, Playwrights Canada Press, 2012), and the award-winning volumes Performance and the City and Performance and the Global City (with D.J. Hopkins and Shelley Orr, Palgrave, 2009 and 2013).
But: my students are my favourite collaborators. For me, teaching is necessarily a collaborative practice – my students and my teaching peers invigorate me, surprise me, challenge me, and help me to improve my pedagogy every day.
(Click here to hear me talk about my teaching philosophy in one hot minute.)
From 2021-24 I served as the Faculty of Arts and Humanities’ teaching fellow, conducting research into interdisciplinary arts-led teaching and learning. As one of four Experiential Learning Innovation Scholars at Western, from 2020 to 2023 I was the lead investigator on a large-scale teaching research project titled “Building a Creative Campus: Learning Through Performance.”
I’d be delighted to chat with graduate students about supervising dissertations in the following fields: contemporary theatre and performance; performance theory; feminist or queer performance theory and practice; early modern theatre; early modern performance studies.
As an affiliate of the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, I’m also happy to be involved with dissertation projects engaged with feminist, gender, and sexuality studies that may not immediately focus on theatre or performance.
Thanks for visiting!
Select Publications and Awards
As single author
Women Making Shakespeare in the 21st Century (Cambridge Elements, 2024)
Theory for Theatre Studies: Space (Bloomsbury, 2019)
Theatre & Feminism (Palgrave, 2015)
Violence Against Women in Early Modern Performance: Invisible Acts (Palgrave, 2009)
As editor
Theatre and Performance in the Neoliberal University: Responses to an Academy in Crisis ( Routledge, 2020)
A Cultural History of Theatre in the Modern Age (Bloomsbury, 2017)
Performance and the Global City (Palgrave, 2013; with D.J. Hopkins)
New Canadian Realisms: Eight Plays (Playwrights Canada, 2012; with Roberta Barker)
New Canadian Realisms: New Essays in Canadian Theatre, Volume 2 (Playwrights Canada, 2012; with Roberta Barker)
Performance and the City (Palgrave, 2009; with D.J. Hopkins and Shelley Orr)
Fellowships and Awards, Research
Western University Graham and Gale Wright Distinguished Scholar, 2019-20
ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education) Excellence in Editing Award, 2016 (with D.J. Hopkins and Shelley Orr)
CATR (Canadian Association for Theatre Research) Patrick O’Neill Award, 2013 (with Roberta Barker)
Teaching
Arts and Humanities Teaching Fellow, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Western University, 2021-24
Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching, Western University, 2021
Experiential Learning Innovation Scholar, Western University, 2020-23
Marilyn Robinson Award for Excellence in Teaching, Western University, 2009
