Media Studies Program Director
Shannon Steen writes and teaches about a variety of topics, but primarily about performance in its social and political contexts. Her book The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea was published with the University of Michigan Press in 2023. Prior to that she authored Racial Geometries: The Black Atlantic, Asian Pacific, and American Theatre. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; part of the Studies in International Performance Series), and co-edited AfroAsian Encounters: Culture, History, Politics (New York University Press, 2006). Before joining the faculty at Berkeley, she taught for the M.F.A. acting program at A.C.T. in San Francisco, and in the English Department at Northwestern University.
She currently serves as the Associate Dean for Academic Planning for the College of Letters and Science, and is also faculty with the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies.
