Theatre Prof to Lecture at WIU

November 22, 2006

Printer friendly version

MACOMB, IL – Sandra Richards, professor of theatre, performance studies, and African American studies, and an instructor of sociology and comparative literature at Northwestern University, will present “The Diaspora’s ‘Return’ to Africa” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 30 in Stipes Hall 121 on the Western Illinois University-Macomb campus.

Conscience, Western’s African American studies theatre troupe, will also present readings from “The Dark Kalamazoo,” a play by Oni Faida Lampley, and “Afrika Solo” by Djanet Sears. The lecture and readings are open free to the public.

Richards was a Fulbright lecturer in theatre from 1983-1985 at the University of Benin in Nigeria. From that experience, she wrote “Ancient Songs Set Ablaze: The Theatre of Femi Osofisan” and also published numerous articles on playwrights such as Ntozake Shange and August Wilson of the United States; Wole Soyinka, Bode Sowande and Zulu Sofola of Nigeria; and Abdias do Nascimento of Brazil.

Richards is currently conducting research on cultural tourism to slave sites in the Black Atlantic. Some of that research has been published in Theatre Journal 57.4 (December 2005) and in “The Sage Handbook of Performance Studies.”

For more information, contact Abdul Rasheed Na’Allah, African American studies chair, at 309/298-1181 or at A-Naallah@wiu.edu.





Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing