Jon Rossini

Background

About Jon Rossini

Jon D. Rossini is Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at UC Davis where he teaches courses in Theatre and Dance History, Ethnicity/Race in Performance, Performance Writing, Playwriting, and Theories of Performance. He is the author of Pragmatic Liberation and the Politics of Puerto Rican Diasporic Drama (University of Michigan Press, 2024) and Contemporary Latina/o Theater: Wrighting Ethnicity (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008) along with more than twenty-five articles and book chapters. His essay “Marisol, Angels, and Apocalyptic Migrations” won the 2001 Amy and Eric Burger Theater Essay Contest. He has received a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship, a UC MEXUS faculty grant, a Davis Humanities Institute Fellowship, and a Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association Teaching Excellence Award.His current research considers the formation and limits of the work of politics within contemporary US theater and the theory and practice of performance/performative writing. His creative activity includes writing for performance and dramaturgy. He was the creator and performer of Performance/Theory Lab A Series of Serious 22 22 Minute Events, and has collaborated with choreographer David Grenke on several dance theater pieces including In the Space Provided and Low Flying Planes. At UC Davis he has served as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance and in several positions within the Academic Senate including Vice Chair of the Division, Chair of Undergraduate Council, and Chair of Affirmative Action and Diversity and has served as Treasurer of Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) and member of the ATHE Governing Council.