Laura Edmondson
Biographic Data
| ID | 197843 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laura Edmondson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laura |
| FAMILY NAME | Edmondson |
| SIGNATURE | EDMONDSON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Laura Edmondson is Assistant Professor of theatre studies at Dartmouth College. Her book, Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press this year. |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6766-3314 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Labial Politics of Stella Nyanzi
The poet, activist, and scholar Stella Nyanzi has achieved international fame for her sexually explicit poetry and social media posts that she writes in furious opposition to the autocratic Ugandan state-an approach that has been described, after Carol Summers, as "radical rudeness." What is often overlooked, though, is how Nyanzi employs medical discourse to critique the insidious damage of the state on Ugandan bodies as well as to imagine other…
The theater of Tejumola Olaniyan: African performance and the possibilities of strangeness
This essay traces the thematic of performance across Tejumola Olaniyan's prolific scholarship. Even when Olaniyan is not writing about performance per se, his conceptualizations of the African state, which yield terms such as "enchanting," "strangeness," and the "postcolonial incredible," blur distinctions between governance, theatricality, and affect. The lens of performance reveals tensions in Olaniyan's thought as he works to not only affirm i…
Faustin Linyekula and the Violence of Plague
This essay delves into the materialities of infection through an exploration of two dance/theatre works created by Congolese theatre artist and choreographer Faustin Linyekula and his company Studios Kabako: Dinozord: The Dialogue Series IIII (2006) and In Search of Dinozord (2012). The Dinozord series serves as a multifaceted homage to Linyekula's childhood friend and fellow artist Richard Kabako, an actor and writer who died from bubonic plague…
The Fabulous Pan-Africanism of Binyavanga Wainaina
In the burgeoning field of queer African studies, theatricality receives short shrift. Instead, anthropological studies of LGBTQ identities and practices in Africa emphasize theoretical frameworks of sexual discretion, elusiveness, and ambiguity. This essay explores the coarticulation of discretion and theatricality in Binyavanga Wainaina's 2011 play Shine Your Eye, which features a queer Ogoni hacker in Lagos. The play borrows from Afrofuturism …
Antihomosexual Acts on Trial: The Poetics of Justice in Uganda
Reading across artistic, political, and legal expressions of LGBT activism in and from Uganda reveals an aesthetics of silence. These moments of silence serve as a strategy of deferral that enables Ugandans on both sides of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill controversy to refuse humanitarian savior narratives, affirm the legitimacy of the postcolonial state, and point the way toward an East African grammar of justice
Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire
Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire
Performing the Nation: Genocide, Justice, Reconciliation by Ananda Breed (review)
Uganda Is Too Sexy: Reflections on Kony 2012
September 01 2012 Uganda Is Too Sexy: Reflections on Kony 2012 Laura Edmondson Laura Edmondson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Laura Edmondson Online ISSN: 1531-4715 Print ISSN: 1054-2043 ©2012 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2012 TDR/The Drama Review (2012) 56 (3 (215)): 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1162/DRAM_a_00185 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share I…
Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort
Among the mounting pile of plays that address the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Erik Ehn's play Maria Kizito stands out for its systematic dismantling of boundaries between nightmare and reality, poetry and fact, the quotidian and the extreme. Although the play itself has received only one production to date, this essay positions the text of Maria Kizito within a larger metatext that Ehn is scripting through a series of cultural exchanges and conferen…
Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage
Explores popular theatre as insight into national social and political values
Of Sugarcoating and Hope
June 01 2007 Of Sugarcoating and Hope Laura Edmondson Laura Edmondson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Laura Edmondson Online Issn: 1531-4715 Print Issn: 1054-2043 © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2007 TDR/The Drama Review (2007) 51 (2 (194)): 7–10. https://doi.org/10.1162/dram.2007.51.2.7 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share MailTo Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon View…
Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage
Introduction: Acts of Complicity: Meanings, Methods, and Maps Part 1. Imagining the Nation 1. Performing, Transforming, and Reforming Tanzania: A Historical Tale 2. Alternative Nations: Locating Tradition, Morality, and Power Part 2. Sexing the Nation 3. National Erotica: The Politics of Ngoma 4. Popular Drama and the Mapping of Home Part 3. Contesting the Nation 5. Culture Wars: TOT vs. Muungano 6. A Victor Declared: Popular Performance in the N…
Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda
This essay explores the ways in which theatre and performance are used to market trauma and humanitarianism in northern Uganda, where a civil war has been waging between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government since the late 1980s. Specifically, the article focuses on the dynamics of performance in a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers sponsored by World Vision. I draw upon my observations and personal experiences …
Love in the Time of Dissertations: An Ethnographic Tale
Robert Ajwang', a dancer and musician from Tanzania, collaborated with theatre scholar Laura Edmondson on a performance text that addresses ethnography and desire. Edmondson spent 16 months in 1996 and 1997 on the Swahili coast doing research on Tanzanian popular theatre. During that time, Ajwang' served as her research assistant; they eventually married in 1999. The performance text, which culls together excerpts from Edmondson's publications, A…
The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater, and: Ghana's Concert Party Theatre (review)
Karin Barber and Catherine M. Cole explore two of the most famous traditions of West African theatre: Yorùbá popular theatre and the Ghanaian concert party. Through a combination of careful ethnographic research and detailed analysis, both scholars have produced invaluable contributions to African theatre scholarship that do justice to the complexity of these traditions
National Erotica, The Politics of “Traditional” Dance in Tanzania
In Tanzania, a tension exists between the persistence of the “primi-tive” and “erotic” stereotype of African performance and the emergent means of representing culture and gender on the dance stage. This tension leads to a complex process of inventing, counterinventing, and reinventing tradition
Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship (review)
In an evocative opening for a compelling book, May Joseph recalls her "visual shock" (2) induced by the beginning of Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala, which depicts Idi Amin's mass eviction of the South Asian population of Uganda in 1972. This scene triggers memories of her own family's abrupt departure from the neighboring country of Tanzania in 1975 and ultimately leads to an attempt to make sense of the "trauma of failed citizenship" (…
Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda
This essay explores the ways in which theatre and performance are used to market trauma and humanitarianism in northern Uganda, where a civil war has been waging between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government since the late 1980s. Specifically, the article focuses on the dynamics of performance in a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers sponsored by World Vision. I draw upon my observations and personal experiences …
Love in the Time of Dissertations: An Ethnographic Tale
Robert Ajwang', a dancer and musician from Tanzania, collaborated with theatre scholar Laura Edmondson on a performance text that addresses ethnography and desire. Edmondson spent 16 months in 1996 and 1997 on the Swahili coast doing research on Tanzanian popular theatre. During that time, Ajwang' served as her research assistant; they eventually married in 1999. The performance text, which culls together excerpts from Edmondson's publications, A…
The theater of Tejumola Olaniyan: African performance and the possibilities of strangeness
This essay traces the thematic of performance across Tejumola Olaniyan's prolific scholarship. Even when Olaniyan is not writing about performance per se, his conceptualizations of the African state, which yield terms such as "enchanting," "strangeness," and the "postcolonial incredible," blur distinctions between governance, theatricality, and affect. The lens of performance reveals tensions in Olaniyan's thought as he works to not only affirm i…
Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort
Among the mounting pile of plays that address the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Erik Ehn's play Maria Kizito stands out for its systematic dismantling of boundaries between nightmare and reality, poetry and fact, the quotidian and the extreme. Although the play itself has received only one production to date, this essay positions the text of Maria Kizito within a larger metatext that Ehn is scripting through a series of cultural exchanges and conferen…
Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship (review)
In an evocative opening for a compelling book, May Joseph recalls her "visual shock" (2) induced by the beginning of Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala, which depicts Idi Amin's mass eviction of the South Asian population of Uganda in 1972. This scene triggers memories of her own family's abrupt departure from the neighboring country of Tanzania in 1975 and ultimately leads to an attempt to make sense of the "trauma of failed citizenship" (…
National Erotica, The Politics of “Traditional” Dance in Tanzania
In Tanzania, a tension exists between the persistence of the “primi-tive” and “erotic” stereotype of African performance and the emergent means of representing culture and gender on the dance stage. This tension leads to a complex process of inventing, counterinventing, and reinventing tradition
The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater, and: Ghana's Concert Party Theatre (review)
Karin Barber and Catherine M. Cole explore two of the most famous traditions of West African theatre: Yorùbá popular theatre and the Ghanaian concert party. Through a combination of careful ethnographic research and detailed analysis, both scholars have produced invaluable contributions to African theatre scholarship that do justice to the complexity of these traditions
Love in the Time of Dissertations: An Ethnographic Tale
Robert Ajwang', a dancer and musician from Tanzania, collaborated with theatre scholar Laura Edmondson on a performance text that addresses ethnography and desire. Edmondson spent 16 months in 1996 and 1997 on the Swahili coast doing research on Tanzanian popular theatre. During that time, Ajwang' served as her research assistant; they eventually married in 1999. The performance text, which culls together excerpts from Edmondson's publications, A…
Marketing Trauma and the Theatre of War in Northern Uganda
This essay explores the ways in which theatre and performance are used to market trauma and humanitarianism in northern Uganda, where a civil war has been waging between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan government since the late 1980s. Specifically, the article focuses on the dynamics of performance in a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers sponsored by World Vision. I draw upon my observations and personal experiences …
Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage
Explores popular theatre as insight into national social and political values
Of Sugarcoating and Hope
June 01 2007 Of Sugarcoating and Hope Laura Edmondson Laura Edmondson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Laura Edmondson Online Issn: 1531-4715 Print Issn: 1054-2043 © 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology2007 TDR/The Drama Review (2007) 51 (2 (194)): 7–10. https://doi.org/10.1162/dram.2007.51.2.7 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share MailTo Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon View…
Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage
Introduction: Acts of Complicity: Meanings, Methods, and Maps Part 1. Imagining the Nation 1. Performing, Transforming, and Reforming Tanzania: A Historical Tale 2. Alternative Nations: Locating Tradition, Morality, and Power Part 2. Sexing the Nation 3. National Erotica: The Politics of Ngoma 4. Popular Drama and the Mapping of Home Part 3. Contesting the Nation 5. Culture Wars: TOT vs. Muungano 6. A Victor Declared: Popular Performance in the N…
Genocide Unbound: Erik Ehn, Rwanda, and an Aesthetics of Discomfort
Among the mounting pile of plays that address the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Erik Ehn's play Maria Kizito stands out for its systematic dismantling of boundaries between nightmare and reality, poetry and fact, the quotidian and the extreme. Although the play itself has received only one production to date, this essay positions the text of Maria Kizito within a larger metatext that Ehn is scripting through a series of cultural exchanges and conferen…
Uganda Is Too Sexy: Reflections on Kony 2012
September 01 2012 Uganda Is Too Sexy: Reflections on Kony 2012 Laura Edmondson Laura Edmondson Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Laura Edmondson Online ISSN: 1531-4715 Print ISSN: 1054-2043 ©2012 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2012 TDR/The Drama Review (2012) 56 (3 (215)): 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1162/DRAM_a_00185 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share I…
Performing the Nation: Genocide, Justice, Reconciliation by Ananda Breed (review)
Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire
Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire
Antihomosexual Acts on Trial: The Poetics of Justice in Uganda
Reading across artistic, political, and legal expressions of LGBT activism in and from Uganda reveals an aesthetics of silence. These moments of silence serve as a strategy of deferral that enables Ugandans on both sides of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill controversy to refuse humanitarian savior narratives, affirm the legitimacy of the postcolonial state, and point the way toward an East African grammar of justice
Faustin Linyekula and the Violence of Plague
This essay delves into the materialities of infection through an exploration of two dance/theatre works created by Congolese theatre artist and choreographer Faustin Linyekula and his company Studios Kabako: Dinozord: The Dialogue Series IIII (2006) and In Search of Dinozord (2012). The Dinozord series serves as a multifaceted homage to Linyekula's childhood friend and fellow artist Richard Kabako, an actor and writer who died from bubonic plague…
The Fabulous Pan-Africanism of Binyavanga Wainaina
In the burgeoning field of queer African studies, theatricality receives short shrift. Instead, anthropological studies of LGBTQ identities and practices in Africa emphasize theoretical frameworks of sexual discretion, elusiveness, and ambiguity. This essay explores the coarticulation of discretion and theatricality in Binyavanga Wainaina's 2011 play Shine Your Eye, which features a queer Ogoni hacker in Lagos. The play borrows from Afrofuturism …
The theater of Tejumola Olaniyan: African performance and the possibilities of strangeness
This essay traces the thematic of performance across Tejumola Olaniyan's prolific scholarship. Even when Olaniyan is not writing about performance per se, his conceptualizations of the African state, which yield terms such as "enchanting," "strangeness," and the "postcolonial incredible," blur distinctions between governance, theatricality, and affect. The lens of performance reveals tensions in Olaniyan's thought as he works to not only affirm i…
The Labial Politics of Stella Nyanzi
The poet, activist, and scholar Stella Nyanzi has achieved international fame for her sexually explicit poetry and social media posts that she writes in furious opposition to the autocratic Ugandan state-an approach that has been described, after Carol Summers, as "radical rudeness." What is often overlooked, though, is how Nyanzi employs medical discourse to critique the insidious damage of the state on Ugandan bodies as well as to imagine other…
Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Art (11 works) · Law (10 works) · History (8 works) · African history and culture studies (7 works) · History (7 works) · Literature (7 works) · Politics (7 works)