Lisa A. Freeman

Lisa A. Freeman

Lisa A. Freeman is an award-winning scholar and teacher who specializes in 18th-century literature and culture and theater and performance studies.

Freeman’s work situates the theater as a place where the public comes together to debate issues of the day. In her book “Antitheatricality and the Body Public,” Freeman examines the theater as a site of broad cultural movements and conflicts and argues that antitheatrical incidents from the English Renaissance to present-day America provide insight into major struggles over the balance of power and political authority. In 2023-24, she was president of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.

As dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Freeman leads the largest of UIC’s 16 colleges, which includes 25 departments and 40 academic majors.