- Email:
- nrizzo@iu.edu
- Website:
- https://english.indiana.edu/about/graduate-students/literature/index.html
- Department:
- Department of English
- Campus:
- IU Bloomington
About Nicole Rizzo
Education
Ph.D. English, Indiana University, Bloomington (Spring 2026)
M.A. English, Indiana University, Bloomington (Fall 2021)
B.A. English, Boston University (Spring 2018) summa cum laude with honors in English; Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Honors College Scholar
Nicole Rizzo focuses on 20th and 21st century American and British literature, modernism, and postmodern drama. Her research interests include trauma studies, disability studies, gender & sexuality studies, queer theory, critical race theory, and performance studies. She was the Graduate Assistant for Theory Theater Performance and originally designed/maintained the website for this initiative from Spring 2025-Summer 2026.
While at IU, she earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in English and a Ph.D. Minor in Gender Studies. She earned her B.A. in English with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Boston University and is an alumna of the Kilachand Honors College. Nicole is especially interested in the intersection of social activism and art as well as in how interdisciplinary collaboration can be generative for feminist discourse and action around social justice issues.
During the AY 2025-2026, Nicole completed her dissertation, Trauma Drama: Postmodernity and its Mad Affects that engages the intersection of Black Performance Studies, Mad/Disability Studies, and Ecofeminism and seeks to challenge the ableism and sanism of today's society by redefining what it means to be mad in a culture of trauma and violence. Her dissertation was supported by the Department of English's Albert Wertheim Dissertation Fellowship.
Spring 2023-Spring 2025
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU’s first-year composition course, ENG W131 (for Multilingual Writers) Reading, Writing, and Inquiry I. Course focus on multilingualism and geared toward students who identify as multilingual. Through my commitment to theory, theater, and performance, I brought embodied performance pedagogy to the classroom for both iterations of W131.
Fall 2021-Fall 2022
Associate Instructor, Indiana University Bloomington
Instructor of record for IU’s first-year composition course, ENG-W131 Analytical Reading, Writing, and Inquiry. Course focus on “breaking down binaries” along the axes of race, gender, sexuality, and disability.
Selected Publications
Forthcoming in Fall 2026: Baxipatra, Mahasweta, Katherine Silvester, Amber Bowes, Nicole Rizzo, and Emma Swidler. “How Plurilingual Pedagogy Helped Us Confront ‘The Standard English Fairytale’ and Reframe Analytical Reading, Writing, and Inquiry in a Multilingual Composition Program.” Composition Studies.
Kovacs, Teresa, Tanja Nusser, Nicole Rizzo, and Anna-Maria Senuysal, editors. The Theater of Milo Rau: Aesthetics - Ethics - Politics. Brill Fink, 2025.
Rizzo, Nicole Ann. “Mad Time: On Temporality, Trauma, Hysterical Figures, and Liminal Shifters in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse.” Madwomen in Social Justice Movements, Literatures, and Art, edited by Jessica Lowell Mason and Nicole Crevar, Vernon Press, 2023, pp. 93-114.
Rizzo, Nicole. “Why a Staged Reading of Question and Question by Liwaa Yazji?” ArabLit: Arabic Literature and Translation, edited by M. Lynx Qualey, 5 Nov. 2019, arablit.org/2019/11/05/on-a-staged-reading-of-liwaa-yazjis-question-and-question/. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.