A humanist
in practice
Ayanna
Thompson
Practicing humanities research through collaboration.
Ayanna Thompson is a leader of humanities in practice. Her work in academia, on nonprofit boards, and in arts organizations demonstrates the necessity of implementing humanities research into practice.
Thompson is a scholar of Shakespeare, race, and performance. She is the author of many books including Blackface and Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America. A Regents Professor of English and executive director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
She works in major cultural institutions including The Public Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Theater for a New Audience, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and more to put humanities research into action.
Theater collaborations
Ayanna Thompson works on Shakespearean productions and new works in equal measures. Because her scholarly research focuses on how race operates in performance and as a performance, she works with theatre companies, directors, and actors to discuss how race (can, should, and does) makes meaning onstage.
Blackface by Ayanna Thompson
Why are there so many examples of public figures, entertainers, and normal, everyday people in blackface? And why aren't there as many examples of people of color in whiteface? This book explains what blackface is, why it occurred, and what its legacies are in the 21st century. There is a filthy and vile thread-sometimes it's tied into a noose-that connects the first performances of Blackness on English stages, the birth of blackface minstrelsy, contemporary performances of Blackness, and anti-Black racism. Blackface examines that history and provides hope for a future with new performance paradigms.
“Blackface reveals a legacy of performance that is pointed and detrimental, known but purposely forgotten. Thompson's analysis is exquisite and exact. A new entry for the historical record.”
– Ibram X. Kendi, Founding Director, Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, and author of How to Be An Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning
A New Statesman essential non-fiction book of 2021
Featured in Book Riot's 12 best nonfiction books about Black identity and history
A Times Higher Education Book of the Week
2022 Finalist for the Prose Awards (Media and Cultural Studies category)
Scholar of race and performance
Although she is frequently labeled a “Shakespeare scholar,” a more adequate label for Ayanna Thompson is something closer to a “performance race scholar.” Thompson’s research employs historicist, theoretical, pedagogical, and practical lenses to ask how race operates in performance and as a performance.
Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Thompson is the executive director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance studies, where she has garnered over $7 million in funding for the center’s programs. She is the founder of RaceB4Race, a field-changing professional network and conference series. Her work at the center has brought its programming and publications to international prominence and has become a model for humanities research centers around the world.