Brandi Wilkins Catanese

Catanese

Brandi Wilkins Catanese

Associate Professor, African American Studies & Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies

Contact:
E: catanese@berkeley.edu

Biography

Brandi Wilkins Catanese is an Associate Professor in the Departments of African American Studies and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, as well as being affiliated faculty with the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. She earned her BA in African American Studies and Dramatic Art/Dance from UC Berkeley, and her PhD in Drama and Humanities from Stanford University. Her work addresses the role of performance in constructing our understandings of black identity, both through aesthetic production and through the performativity of everyday life. She has published articles in Theatre Journal, Performance Research, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, and Contemporary African American Women Playwrights: A Casebook; forthcoming articles address black women’s diaspora performance; whiteface performance; the politics of representation in black theater; and black political culture. She is in the final stages of writing her first book, an examination of the impact of multiculturalist and colobrblind discourses upon black performance at the beginning of the 21st century. In addition to her scholarly work, she occasionally directs workshop productions (I Ain’t Yo Uncle, 365 Days/365 Plays) for the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.