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Laura Edmondson (she/hers/any) teaches courses on postcolonial African drama, feminist and queer performance, transnational theater history, and human rights and performance. She has published widely on eastern and central African theater and performance, including two books: Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage and Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire , both of which were published through the African Expressive Cultures series at Indiana University Press. Her articles have appeared in GLQ , Theatre Journal , JALA , Theatre Research International , TDR , Theatre Topics , and the anthologies African Performance Arts (Routledge) and Violence Performed (Palgrave Macmillan). She received the 2021 Oscar Brockett Best Essay Prize from the American Society of Theatre Research for her article, "Faustin Linyekula and the Violence of Plague," which appeared in Theatre Journal . Her research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Fulbright Program. At Dartmouth, she has served as the department chair of Theater as well as program chair of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; she has twice received the Dean of the Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentoring and Advising. She is currently the editor of Theatre Journal and also serves on the Executive Committee of the American Society of Theatre Research. For 2024-2025, she is a grateful recipient of an NEH fellowship for her book project, Performing Contagion and Care in Central Africa.
"Labial Politics in Uganda: The Poetry and Activism of Stella Nyanzi." Forthcoming in Meridians (2025).
"The Theatre of Tejumola Olaniyan: African Performance and the Possibilities of Strangeness." Journal of the African Literature Association , 18.2 (2024), 244–256.
"Faustin Linyekula and the Violence of Plague." Theatre Journal (December 2020): 405-423.
"The Fabulous Pan-Africanism of Binyavanga Wainaina." GLQ 26.3 (June 2020): 529-560.
"Anti-Homosexual Acts on Trial: The Poetics of Justice in Uganda." TDR 63.2 (Summer 2019): 6-33.
Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018.
Forged in Fire by Okello Kelo Sam, Laura Edmondson, and Robert Ajwang. Voorhees Theatre in Brooklyn, NY. 2015.
"Uganda Is Too Sexy: Reflections on Kony 2012 ." TDR 56.3 (Fall 2012). 10-17.
Forged in Fire (play). By Okello Kelo Sam, Laura Edmondson, and Robert Ajwang. Excerpted in Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters . Ed. Michael Balfour. Bristol, UK and Chicago: Intellect Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2012. 61-66.
Eat Like a Bird (play). In Cultural Conversations: Works in Progress, Writers in the Making , ed. Susan B. Russell (Lemont, PA: Eifrig Publishing, 2011), 91-132.
"Confessions of a Failed Theatre Activist: Intercultural Encounters in Uganda and Rwanda." In Avant-Garde Performance and Material Exchange: Vectors of the Radical , edited by Mike Sell. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 41-59.
"Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort," Theatre Journal , 61:1 (March 2009): 65-83.
Review essay: "Performing Africa." African Affairs 109 (2009): 151-160.
"The Poetics of Displacement and the Politics of Genocide in Three Plays about Rwanda," in Violence Performed: Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict , edited by Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 54-78.
Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage , Indiana University Press, 2007.
"Of Sugarcoating and Hope," TDR , 51:2 (May 2007): 7-10.
"Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda," Theatre Journal , 57:3 (2005): 451-474.
"Love in the Time of Dissertations: An Ethnographic Tale," with R O Ajwang, Qualitative Inquiry , 9:3 (June 2003): 466-480.
Performing Contagion and Care in Central Africa