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Ayanna Thompson, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and one of the world’s foremost authorities on issues of race in Shakespeare and the impact of nontraditional casting on audiences today, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 15, in Ford Chapel at Allegheny College.

A reception will follow in the Ford Chapel Oratory. The free event is open to the public.

Thompson’s talk is titled “Shakespeare, Race, and Performance: What We Still Don’t Know.” She is president-elect of the Shakespeare Association of America and a professor of English at George Washington University, specializing in Renaissance drama and issues of race in/as performance.

She is the author of “Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centered Approach,” “Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America” and “Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage.” She wrote the new introduction for the revised “Arden 3 Othello,” and is the editor of “Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race” and “Performance and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance.”

Currently on the editorial boards of the “Shakespeare Quarterly,” “Renaissance Drama” and “Shakespeare Bulletin,” she has served on the board of directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars.

Thompson will be on Allegheny’s campus for a two-day program on February 15–16 that will include classroom discussions, meeting with students, and her public lecture.

Phi Beta Kappa is a national scholastic society which has had a chapter at Allegheny since 1902. It was founded in 1776, has chapters at 286 colleges and universities, and has more than half a million members throughout the country. The Visiting Scholar Program gives undergraduates the opportunity to spend time with some of America’s most distinguished scholars. The 15 men and women participating during 2017–2018 will visit 110 colleges and universities with chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, spending two days on each campus.