Winner of the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education

I am thrilled to announce that Racial Innocence has won the Outstanding Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) “on the basis of the study's potential to interrupt, change and/or challenge” the field of theatre studies. This recognition means so much to me--not only because it's a major honor, but also because it comes from an academic organization that has been central to my intellectual life since 1998. That year at the ATHE conference, I gave my first two papers on the respective debut panels of the American Theatre and Drama Society (ATDS) and the Theatre History Focus Group. ATHE and the ATDS supported me in so many ways as I wrote this book: both provided opportunities for me to sound out my ideas with other scholars, and both recognized my article, "Dances with Things: Material Culture and the Performance of Race" (Social Text n. 101 [December 2009]), parts of which later folded into Racial Innocence. And finally, I'm honored that winning this award puts me in such good company: previous winners include scholars I deeply admire such as David Román, Shannon Jackson, and Diana Taylor, and I co-won the prize with Susan Leigh Foster, whose work on dance regularly blows my mind. Many thanks to the awards committee and to everyone else who helped make this happen!