Ayanna Thompson
Ayanna Thompson is Professor of English at Arizona State University and Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies. She is the president of the Shakespeare Association of America. She specialises in Renaissance drama and issues of race in performance.Education
Thompson won a Marshall Scholarship to study at the University of Sussex, receiving a Masters in 1995. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 2001. Her doctoral dissertation was Depicting Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage.Career
Thompson was previously an investment banker at Lehman Brothers. Thompson was Professor at Arizona State University 2004-2013 before her appointment at George Washington University. Thompson served as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, 2017-2018.
She was previously President of the Shakespeare Association of America. She currently serves on the boards of the journals Shakespeare Quarterly, Renaissance Drama, and Shakespeare Bulletin. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars.
Thompson gave the keynote speech on "Shakespeare and Blackface" at the Shakespeare and Social Justice conference held at the University of Cape Town in association with the University of the Witwatersrand and the Shakespeare Association of Southern Africa in 2019.
Thompson has been described as 'a world-class scholar', an 'accomplished leader', a 'true innovator', and 'a major force'.
