Scholar of race and performance
No ordinary scholar
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. Her books range in topic from the history of blackface performances in the US and UK to the history of inclusive casting on Shakespearean stages to practical pedagogical strategies for creating student-centered classrooms.
An innovative, interdisciplinary scholar, Thompson models ways to bring disparate fields, methodologies, and theories together to tackle how the past informs our present and our potential futures.
Because of her wide-ranging expertise, she is on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly journals and university press series. Thompson served as the President of the Shakespeare Association of America, was one of Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholars, a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars, and in 2021 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Thompson is an Associate Scholar and the chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Research Board, and is a member of the Folger Shakespeare Library Board of Governors.
Research funding
Ayanna Thompson is the recipient of many grants and research awards, totaling just over $7 million. She is the PI on projects funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Hitz Foundation, the Henry Luce foundation, the Presidential Strategic Initiatives at ASU, and the Arizona Community Foundation. She is the Co-PI on projects funded by SSRC-NEH, the Mellon Foundation, and the Institute for Humanities Research at ASU.
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.
Public work
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Shakespeare Unlimited: Throughlines
Ayanna Thompson and Ruben Espinosa on The Folger Shakespeare Library’s podcast Shakespeare Unlimited. - Espinosa and Thompson share their experiences teaching Shakespeare in diverse higher education settings. Their conversation underscores students’ need for open dialogue and provides practical strategies for navigating these discussions.
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Confronting Shakespeare's Ghost
Ayanna Thompson in Ms. Magazine’s Banned series. As I write this in fall 2024, there have been at least 807 legislative measures at the local, state and federal levels against the teaching of critical race theory. This onslaught of legislation has caused a chilling effect, where even when such legislation is unsuccessful, the fear influences teachers to censure themselves.
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Blackface Is Older than You Might Think
Ayanna Thompson in Smithsonian Magazine. - When New York’s Metropolitan Opera produced Guiseppi Verdi’s Otello in 2015, it marked the first time in the company’s 125-year performance history that the lead actor would not employ blackface makeup. Ever since the opera’s first performance in New York in 1891, all the leading tenors had performed the role in black and brown makeup.
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An Evening with Fred Moten and Jericho Brown
Ayanna Thompson in conversation with Fred Moten and Jericho brown as the keynote event for the RaceB4Race Poetics symposium in January 2023.
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NPR Code Switch: All That Glisters Is Not Gold
It's a widely accepted truth: reading Shakespeare is good for you. But what should we do with all of the bigoted themes in his work? The hosts of NPR Code Switch talk to a group of high schoolers who put on the Merchant of Venice as a way to interrogate anti-Semitism, and then talk to Ayanna Thompson about adaptations of Shakespeare.
Image: LA Johnson/NPR
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Shakespeare and Blackface / Shakespeare and Unfreedom
Ayanna Thompson gave the keynote address at "Shakespeare and Social Justice: Scholarship and Performance in an Unequal World", a conference hosted by the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa as part of its 2019 triennial congress.
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TomorrowTalks with Percival Everett
Ayanna Thompson in conversation with Percival Everett as a part of the ASU Department of English’s TomorrowTalks program.
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BlacKKKShakespearean: A Call to Action for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
Collaboratively written by Kimberly Anne Coles, Kim F. Hall, and Ayanna Thompson.
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TomorrowTalks with Ayanna Thompson
Arizona State University presents scholar, activist, and "Othello-whisperer" Ayanna Thompson as a guest in its TomorrowTalks series. Thompson discussed her book, Blackface (Object Lessons). The conversation with Thompson was facilitated by ASU's Lisa Anderson, an associate professor of women and gender studies and deputy director in the School of Social Transformation.
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A Career in Critical Race Studies with Ayanna Thompson and Noémie Ndiaye
Ayanna Thompson and Noémie Ndiaye discuss the professionalization of premodern critical race studies with the Newberry Library’s Center for Renaissance Studies.