Olivia Stowell

Olivia Stowell graduated from Westmont College, double majoring in English and Theater. At Westmont, her classes on race and gender, alongside her involvement in the Racial Equality and Justice organization, spurred her to focus her academic study on the construction and reproduction of embodied identities in 20th/21st century literature and cultures. Her senior thesis explored how the narrative and visual frameworks of Disney’s Aladdin and Pocahontas represent the cultural project of the reproduction of whiteness, and the ways Western power co-opts and/or dismantles other cultural identities for its own benefit. During her undergrad, Olivia worked in Westmont’s archives and wrote for the Arts & Entertainment section of the student newspaper. She performed in Westmont’s theater productions, her favorite role being Lydia Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. She also directed multiple theatre pieces based on 20th century poetry, including an adaptation of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and her senior capstone “The Awful Rowing Toward God,” which integrated Eliot’s early poetry with Anne Sexton’s late work. Besides liking to turn poetry into theater, Olivia is also a poet herself, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Albion Review, Madcap Review, and Ghost City Review. When she isn’t writing poetry, at yoga, or binge-watching Project Runway, she likes cooking, traveling, and making Spotify playlists.