AMY COOK

Professor, Department of English 
Professor and Chair, Department of Theatre Arts
BA, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Ph.D. University of California, San Diego
Humanities 2079
amy.cook@stonybrook.edu

• BIOGRAPHY

  Amy Cook is a Professor in English and the Chair of Stony Brook University’s Art Department. Her most recent book, Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting (University of Michigan Press, 2018), was called a “masterpiece that lies at the intersection of the humanities and cognitive science” by Mark Turner. Cook specializes in the intersection of cognitive science and theatre with particular attention to Shakespeare and contemporary performance. She has published Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies (Methuen, 2016), co-edited with Rhonda Blair. She has published essays in Theatre Journal, TDR, SubStance, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism and several edited volumes, including Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater (2015), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (2018), The Cambridge Companion of Shakespeare’s Language (forthcoming) and The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance, and Cognitive Science, (Routledge, 2018).

   She served as Secretary of American Society of Theatre Research until November 2017 and was the co-organizer of the 5 ^th Annual Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities Conference, Stony Brook, NY, June 2017.

   Amy received her Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego (2006), had a postdoc at Emory and accepted a position at Indiana University before coming to Stony Brook.

   She teaches courses on Shakespeare, performance and performance theory, and theatre history.

   For more information on her book, check out her interview on Howlround : http://howlround.com/theatre-history-podcast-58-what-we-think-about-when-we-think-about-casting-dr-amy-cook-s-building