Seth Stewart Williams

Seth Stewart Williams is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Barnard College, part of Columbia University. His academic affiliations include the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Barnard and the Ph.D. program in Theatre at Columbia. He earned a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in English Literature from Columbia University, along with B.A. degrees in Dance and Comparative Literature from the University of California, Irvine.

His research focuses on the interplay between dance and literature in early modern Europe, particularly examining dance notation systems, political and racial theories in performance, and the role of dance in historical events like colonization and the British Civil War. His current monograph project, Virtual Motion: Choreographic Thinking in Early Modern English Literature, explores how dance shaped political and social movements in literature.

Williams has received prestigious fellowships from institutions like the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Heyman Center for the Humanities. He teaches courses on topics ranging from world dance history to choreography and race in America. His performance career includes work with the Mark Morris Dance Group and The New York Baroque Dance Company, where he reconstructed early ballets from historical notation systems.

Key awards include the 2019-20 Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship and residency roles at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. His scholarship bridges early modern studies with contemporary performance theory, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to dance’s cultural significance.