Ayanna Thompson is director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS) at Arizona State University. She is the author of "Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars" (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), "Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach" (Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), "Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America" (Oxford University Press, 2011), and "Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage" (Routledge, 2008). She wrote the new introduction for the revised Arden3 "Othello" (Arden, 2016), and is the editor of "Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance" (Palgrave, 2010) and "Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance" (Routledge, 2006). She is currently working on a collection of essays for Cambridge University Press on Shakespeare and race, and is collaborating with Curtis Perry for a new edition of "Titus Andronicus." Professor Thompson is the 2018-19 president of the Shakespeare Association of America, and has served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars. She was one of Phi Beta Kappa’s Visiting Scholars for 2017-2018.