Esther Wilson

Thesis

The World Turned Upside-Down? Understanding Hamilton and Public Performances of History on the Digital Stage

Supervisor: Geoff Cubitt and Victoria Hoyle

Research

Framing Hamilton: An American Musical as a cultural product of the Obama era, Esther’s work centralises performative methodologies as part of understanding public engagement with history within an evolving digital world. Though based in the University of York’s Institute for Public Understandings of the Past (IPUP), her interdisciplinary research brings together scholarship from digital cultures and interactive media, theatre and performance, contemporary history, politics and American studies. The research considers the significance of Hamilton: An American Musical's performativity, digitality and transmedial engagement with the past. Prioritising both public experience and academic practice, it hopes to encourage new understandings and conceptual frameworks relevant to the public history of today.

Esther is also interested in the relationships between history and performance across stage and screen beyond the thesis, with recent creative and professional practice leading to research around dance and community theatre as sites for public history. Having undertaken work across York’s Department of History and the School of the Arts and Creative Technologies, Esther has a passion for interdisciplinary teaching and learning and would warmly welcome opportunities to discuss her research and related interests.

Papers and publications

Publications

Esther Wilson, “‘Love, Loss, and Imperial Intimacy’: Empress Elisabeth in MacMillan’s Mayerling,” To Play the Queen, ed. Sarah Betts (Forthcoming)

Esther Wilson, “Empathising with The People’s Princess: Diana and Public Engagement with The Crown and its Past,” Television and Empathy, ed. Michael Samuel (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025)

“A Marriage of Contradictions: The Sartorial Designs of a Regency Yorkshire Wedding Dress”, The Journal of Dress History 7, no.1 (2023): 46-56

Conference Papers and Activities

"Through a Child's Eyes: Re-Centering Amateur Performance and Community Memory in Leeds, United Kingdom,” Amateur Acts (Venice, 2025)

“New Repertoire for Public Historians? MacMillan’s Mayerling,” Public History Grad Con (York, 2024)

Organiser, “Overlooked pointes in time: Why public historians should learn to dance,” International Federation for Public History (IFPH): Explorers Series (Online, 2024)

Postgraduate panellist, Why Public History Matters (Belfast, 2024)

“Digital Dancing – Hamilton and History on Stage and Screen,” Institute of Historical Research: Digital History Seminar Series (Online, 2024)

“Her Name was Lola: Re-creating the Historical Dancer with Leeds Museums & Galleries,” Public History Grad Con (York, 2023)

“Who Tells Your Story? Narrativity, Record-Making and Archive-Building with Hamilton: An American Musical,” Annual York-Lund-Bielefeld Conference (Online, 2022)

“Netflix’s The Crown and “The People’s Princess”: Making History in the Digital Sphere,” Myth, Rumour and Misinformation (York, 2022)

Guest Lecturing

“History then, through whose history now? Hamilton as a product of the Obama administration in a(nother) Trump world,” Current Trends in Theatre: New Writing, New Practices, New Contexts, School of the Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York (2024/5)

“Digital Performance? Social media, history and society,” Interactive Media & Society, School of the Arts and Creative Technologies, University of York (2023/4 & 2024/5)

“Hamilton: An American Musical,” Historical Fictions and Frictions, Department of History, University of York (2023/4)