Chinua Thelwell

Chinua Thelwell is an American theatre researcher with a special interest in Afro-diasporic history and performance, including blackface minstrelsy.

Biography

Born Chinua Akimaro Thelwell, he received his PhD from the American Studies Program at New York University in 2011 with a thesis on blackface minstrelsy in South Africa, (published as Nothing Now Goes Down But Burnt Cork: Blackface Minstrelsy and Ethnic Impersonation in South Africa, by Proquest, Umi Dissertation Publishing in 2012). Having developed a wide range of teaching and research interests, he has since published on a range of other matters. Currently Associate Professor, History and Africana Studies at the College of William & Mary in Massachusetts

Contribution to South African theatre studies

His research focuses on performance as hegemonic and counter-hegemonic race discourse, and his most relevant published work for Southern African studies includes his thesis, an article in The Drama Review entitled , and two monographs: an edited collection titled Theater and Cultural Politics for a New World (Routledge in 2016) and Exporting Jim Crow: Blackface Minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020).