Laura Edmondson teaches courses on postcolonial African drama, human rights and performance, and transnational theater history. She has published widely on eastern and central African theater and performance, including articles in GLQ, Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, TDR, and the anthologies African Performance Arts (Routledge 2002) and Violence Performed (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 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" in Theatre Journal (December 2020). Her books include Performance and Politics in Tanzania: The Nation on Stage (Indiana UP, 2007) and Performing Trauma in Central Africa: Shadows of Empire (Indiana UP, 2018). Her research has been supported by grants from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the American Association of University Women, and the Fulbright Program. As a playwright, she has collaborated in the creation of Forged in Fire with Ugandan performer Okello Kelo Sam and Tanzanian musician Robert Ajwang, which integrates music, dance, and text to explore Okello's experiences of the LRA conflict in northern Uganda. Forged in Fire was produced at the Voorhees Theatre (Brooklyn) in 2015; excerpts of the play have been published in Refugee Performance (Intellect Books and the University of Chicago Press, 2012). Prior to coming to Dartmouth, she held positions at the University of Georgia and Florida State University. She has also taught at the Bagamoyo College of Arts in Tanzania and in the Department of Literature at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. She is currently the co-editor of Theatre Journal.
“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.
Pathology, Performance, and the Comorbid State in Central Africa
