The University of Washington School of Drama is thrilled to share that Dr. Jasmine Mahmoud will join us as our new Assistant Professor of Theatre History, Theory, and Criticism in the fall of 2021.
Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud is an arts advocate, curator, and historian of art and performance based in Seattle, Washington. Her research engages performance studies, experimental theater and dance, Black aesthetics, critical race studies, feminist/queer of color critique, public policy and arts/cultural policy, urban ethnography, and geography. Her writing appears in Modern Drama, Performance Research, TDR: The Drama Review, Women & Performance, and in the edited volumes Theater and Cultural Politics for a New World and Postdramatic Theatre and Form, as well as in Art Forum, ASAP/J Online, Canadian Art Review, Common Reader, Howlround, Hyperallergic, Literary Hub, and the South Seattle Emerald, where she writes a regular column centering BIPOC artists. In Summer 2021, Northwestern University Press will publish Makeshift Chicago Stages: A Century of Theater and Performance, a volume she co-edited with Megan Geigner (Northwestern) and Stuart Hecht (Boston College). In 2020, she curated Abstractions of Black Citizenship: African American Art from Saint Louis, an exhibition featuring five Black artists from the mid-South city.
Committed to arts advocacy, she currently serves as a Governor Inslee-appointed Washington State Arts Commissioner, board president of Intiman Theatre, and a board member of On the Boards. She previously served as a Seattle Office of Arts and Culture BASE (Building Arts Space Equitably) 2019-2020 cohort member.
She is currently Assistant Professor of Arts Leadership in the Department of Performing Arts and Arts Leadership at Seattle University, where she teaches classes including “Fundamentals of the Arts Sector,” “Public Policy and Advocacy in the Arts,” and “Black Lives Matter: Art Leadership, Theory, and Practice.” She earned a PhD in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, MA in Arts Politics from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, and BA in Government from Harvard University.
“We are tremendously pleased and excited to be welcoming Dr. Jasmine Mahmoud to the UW School of Drama community,” says Professor Scott Magelssen, Head of Theatre History, Theory, and Criticism. “Dr. Mahmoud brings incredibly rich and rigorous contributions to our understanding of theatre and performance, a passion for teaching, and a deep commitment to service and advocacy. Her scholarship and teaching in the areas of arts leadership, urban ethnography and performance history, Black aesthetics and community engagement, and public policy and social justice will dynamize our work toward cultivating our drama students into artists, scholars, and citizens who are engaged with the world.”
Dr. Mahmoud will teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of Drama's history, theory, and criticism area. Please join us in welcoming her to the UW Drama family!