Shannon Jackson

Shannon Jackson is currently the Director of the Arts Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor of Rhetoric and of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. Her research and public service focus primarily on facilitating cross-arts dialogue and experimentation, with an eye toward exploring and advancing the role of the arts in projects of social change.  In her next project, “The Way We Perform Now,” Jackson uses a range of case studies to synthesize the central formal, social, and economic factors that constrain and sustain cross-arts experiments and coalitions.

Jackson’s prior work considered the changing place of performance and culture in the Progressive Era Settlement Movement (Lines of Activity), in the development of U.S. higher education (Professing Performance), and in a contemporary, international public art context (Social Works). She is currently completing a book on the relationship between performance and new technology (with Marianne Weems) and a co-edited collection of keywords in contemporary art and performance (with Paula Marincola).

Shannon Jackson’s essays have appeared in numerous journals, collections, and museum catalogues, and she regularly organizes residencies, workshops, symposia, and think-tanks for scholars, artists, curators, and administrators in the Bay Area and beyond.  She serves as an evaluator for numerous organizations in the arts and humanities and as a board member of the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, Cal Performances, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, Berkeley Center for New Media, and English Institute.