I’m a PhD student in the Program in Theatre and Performance at Columbia University, where I write about the eroticism of wind, the hapticity of blue, and the temporality of shadows. My theoretical and critical work attends to the affective relay between sensation and subjectivity. 

I’m a contributor to the futureStage project at metaLAB, and prior to the GSD, I worked in New York City as a scenic and lighting designer for theater and live performance. My work includes productions at Off-Broadway and indie theaters including Pershing Square Signature Center, Theater Row, American Theater of Actors, The Tank, Theater for the New City, Under St. Marks, The Brick, and more.

I graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a concentration in Anthropology and a certificate in Theater. My undergraduate research explored the literary and cultural history of American nostalgia with particular attention towards material objects, and in recognition for my design work, I was awarded the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts.

Resume and portfolio available upon request.

︎ hello@wfcornwell.com

Some books I’ve been reading lately:

• Meeting the Universe Halfway by Karen Barad
• Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Bioplitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era by Paul Preciado
  
• Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories by Elizabeth Freeman
  
• The Materiality of Architecture by Antoine Picon
• The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam
• Artificial Darkness by Noam Elcott
• A Short History of the Shadow by Victor Stoichita
• Parasite by Michel Serres