Shannon Steen, associate professor of theater, dance and performance studies

Shannon Steen is an associate professor in the Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, where she also serves as affiliated faculty for the Program in American Studies. A specialist in critical race and performance theory, she writes on the intersection of Asian and African American racial determinations. Her book on this topic: “Racial Geometries: the Black Atlantic, the Asian/ Pacific, and American Performance,” will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in early 2010. Her anthology /AfroAsian Cross-cultural Encounters/, co-edited with Heike Raphael-Hernandez, was published by New York University Press in fall 2006. Steen's new project uses President Barack Obama’s 2006-08 campaign to investigate the relationship between affect, race, and performance in the realm of electoral politics.