Maren Anderson Johnson successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation “Staging Genius: Henrik Ibsen and Biographical Theater” on May 29th, 2014. The dissertation argues that recent Norwegian dramas by Robert Ferguson, Jon Fosse, and Niels Fredrik Dahl have shifted the discussion around Ibsen’s authorship and altered perceptions of Ibsen’s status as a genius. The plays stress the ways in which women played a necessary, complicated, and overlooked role in Ibsen’s writing process, challenging the stereotype of the autonomous genius working in isolation. The dissertation calls attention to the significance of biographical theater and fiction in reshaping readers’ ideas of canonical literary figures, such as Ibsen. Professor Andrew Nestingen served as Anderson-Johnson’s adviser. She completed the dissertation at the Ibsen Center in Oslo, where she was in residence as the department’s Kielland-Løvdal fellow in Norwegian studies during 2013-14. Maren Anderson-Johnson begins an appointment as Assistant Professor of Norwegian at Luther College, Decorah, IA, in Autumn 2014.