Dr Emmanuela Wroth

I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, specialising in nineteenth-century French music theatre history and celebrity, through the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class. My current Leverhulme project, “Diasporic Divas: Racialized and Gendered Celebrity in Western Europe, 1715–1925”, recovers the overlooked careers of black women performers and Afrodiasporic performance practices in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western Europe and the Atlantic. While in contemporary culture, ‘diva’ is often used to denigrate or elevate Black celebrity women, historical diva and celebrity studies continue overwhelmingly to be a history of white celebrity that oversimplifies a more complex narrative. My project begins to address this oversight by shining a light, for the first time, on Afrodiasporic divadom, from the conception of the cult of the diva in eighteenth-century Italian opera to its inclusion of theatre and dance stars in fin-de-siècle France. Rather than locating Black divadom as originating in nineteenth-century US, I trace Black divadom back to where the cult of the diva originated, in eighteenth-century Europe. I, therefore, position Black women as crucial pioneers in shaping divadom from the outset.

I hold a BA in Modern and Medieval Languages (French and Spanish), and an MPhil in European and Comparative Literatures and Cultures from the University of Cambridge, and I completed my Collaborative Doctoral Project (PhD) at Durham University and the Bowes Museum. My doctoral thesis, and  forthcoming monograph, "Courting Celebrity: Creating the Courtesan on the Popular Parisian Stage and Beyond, 1831–1859" examines the intersection of gender, sexual, and class politics on the mid-nineteenth-century Parisian popular lyric stages. 

Previously, I held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in French Music at the University of Toronto from 2022–24 for my project "From Branchu to Baker: Tracing Innovative Diasporic Performance Practices Through Time and Space in Nineteenth-Century Paris", which focused on Afrodiasporic women performers in nineteenth-century France.

I regularly disseminate my work publicly, particularly in collaboration with museums, including the National Gallery, the Tate, and the Bowes Museum. I was a 2021 finalist on the AHRC TV PhD scheme at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and I have also disseminated my research on podcasts, such as ArtyParti. I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and I have taught a variety of courses on music history, Francophone culture, theatre, and celebrity.