Deborah A. Thomas

 CO-PRODUCER/DIRECTOR OF FOUR DAYS IN MAY: KINGSTON 2010   |  CURATOR OF THE BEARING WITNESS EXHIBIT  |  AUTHOR OF POLITICAL LIFE IN THE WAKE OF THE PLANTATION

Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Graduate Group at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also core faculty in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, holds a secondary appointment with the Graduate School of Education, and is a member of the graduate groups in English, Africana Studies, and the School of Social Policy and Practice. She is the author of Modern Blackness:  Nationalism, Globalization and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica; Exceptional Violence:  Embodied Citizenship in Transnational Jamaica; Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation: sovereignty, witnessing, repair; and co-editor of the volume Globalization and Race:  Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness.  Prior to her life as an academic, she was a professional dancer with the New York-based Urban Bush Women.  She is also the Producer and Co-Director of the documentary Bad Friday:  Rastafari after Coral Gardens. 

Contact: deborah.thomas@sas.upenn.edu