Shannon Jackson

Dr. Shannon Jackson is a professor at University of California at Berkeley, specializing in rhetoric, contemporary visual and performance art and theory, American studies, sex/gender/race studies, the history of disciplines, and new media theater. She received her PhD in Performance Studies (1995) and Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies (1993) from Northwestern University. As the director of Berkeley College's Arts Research Center, Jackson immerses the arts into community and campus life, promoting new forms of creativity across university disciplines and advocating art's power to contribute to social reform. Her most recent book, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (2011), explores the sociopolitical use of experimental art-making, highlighting contemporary aesthetic discourse primarily in visual and performance art and its centrality to political activism and social practice. Jackson has received countless awards and fellowships for her work as a writer, professor, activist, organizer, and director.

Lives and works in Berkeley, CA.