Devon Cox

Devon Cox is a PhD student on the interdisciplinary, AHRC-funded project ‘French Theatre of the Napoleonic Era’ at the University of Warwick. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in English Literature and Theatre from Purdue University. After moving to London in 2006 he has worked for both the Imperial War Museum and most recently for Sotheby’s in New Bond Street, London.

In April 2013 Devon was appointed to a new post of Project Coordinator for the Channel Route (Great Britain, The Netherlands and Belgium) of the EU-funded European Route of Historic Theatres. He currently works under the umbrella of The Theatres Trust in London to establish links with hundreds of historic theatres which will culminate in a user-focused website for theatre tours and a comprehensive database of historical information each theatre on the route. The current project can be viewed at www.visittheatres.org.

Devon will be publishing his first book, The Street of Wonderful Possibilities: Whistler, Wilde and Sargent in Tite Street with Frances Lincoln in June 2015. He has also written a full-length play about of the tragic downfall and death of Empress Joséphine entitled Joséphine which had a staged-reading at the Institut Français in London in March 2015 staring Louise Jameson (East Enders/Doctor Who).

For his PhD, Devon is focusing on ‘Napoleonic Prisoners of War and their theatricals, 1803 to 1815.’ He will be exploring and analysing interactions, influences and repertoire of French Prisoners of War held by the British in the Balearic island of Cabrera as well as those at Portchester Castle, Dartmoor, and other locations across Britain. In autumn 2015 he will be an Erasmus exchange scholar at Université de Paris X (Nanterre).

Clare Siviter

Clare Siviter is a second-year PhD student investigating the evolution, performance, and political use of tragedy under Napoleon (1799-1815) on the AHRC funded project ‘French theatre of the Napoleonic Era’. As an undergraduate here at Warwick and the Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 3 she developed a keen interest in French classical theatre, focusing on its evolution, manipulation and reception over time. During her final year she researched Napoleon’s political use of the Comédie-Française at Erfurt in 1808 and Dresden in 1813. The re-interpretation of classical tragedies after the fall of the ancien régime also led her to analyse Beaumarchais’s Figaro trilogy through the unusual lens of gender performance. This resulted in her being awarded a stipend to present a conference paper and chair a panel at the first ever International Conference of Undergraduate Research at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia in May 2013.