Mysia Anderson, assistant professor of Black Performance Theory, Dept. of Theatre & Dance, UC San Diego, presents a lecture “Performing Black Sustainability” on Oct. 21 at 4 p.m. in the Della Davidson Studio, Nelson Hall. The event is free.

Anderson earned her PhD from Brown University’s Theatre Arts and Performance Studies department and BA from Stanford University’s African and African American Studies program. Her work engages the fields of Black feminisms, Black Studies, Black Performance Theory, and Environmental Humanities, and draws upon critical ethnography, embodied practice, and archival methodologies.

Her forthcoming manuscript, “Black Miami in the Eye of the Storm: Performing Black Sustainability,” is an ethnography that examines performances of Black sustainability in the city of Miami. Research for this project has been supported by a Ford Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, a Joukowsky Research Award, and several Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Awards. Her work is published or forthcoming in Women, Gender, and Families of Color, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Theatre Symposium, and M(O)ther Perspectives: Staging Motherhood in 21st Century North American Theatre & Performance, an edited anthology.

Professor Anderson’s commitment to service stretches across university departmental work, leadership in the broader fields to which her scholarship belongs, and community-engaged research initiatives. She was the elected 2023 president of the American Society for Theatre Research’s (ASTR’s) Graduate Student Caucus, and an appointed member of ASTR’s 2023 Conference Planning Committee. A winner of the Black Theatre Association’s (BTA) 2022 Debut Scholar Panel, she now serves as a BTA Member-At-Large. She is also actively involved in Black historical preservation efforts in South Florida, and has successfully secured funding for community-facing institutions. 

As a scholar-artist, Anderson desires to tell stories grounded in African Diaspora world-making. She is a graduate of the Atlantic Acting School’s Global Virtual Conservatory. She has worked as a dramaturg in collaboration with playwright Nkenna Akunna at Brown University and poet Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon at The Cherry Arts, Inc.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, Theatre and Dance and the Performance Studies Program.