Mary Helen Dupree received her Ph.D. in German Literature from Columbia University in 2006. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Rice University for two years before accepting her current position as Assistant Professor at Georgetown. Her teaching and research interests are concentrated on late-18th and early-19th-century literature and culture, with emphasis on gender and performance studies. Her current research project focuses on the theory and practice of literary declamation in Germany around 1800.