About

Jasmine Elizabeth Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. A Ford Foundation Diversity Pre and Post-Doctoral Fellow, she earned her Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Johnson has served as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a Ford Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Africana Studies at Barnard College, a Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellow at Wellesley College, and a Postdoctoral Fellow in African American Studies at Northwestern University. In 2016, Johnson was awarded the Michael L. Walzer '56 Award from Brandeis University for combining "superlative scholarship with inspired teaching."

Johnson's work examines the politics of black movement including dance, diasporic travel, and gentrification. Interdisciplinary in nature, her scholarship and teaching are situated at the intersection of diaspora theory, dance and performance studies, ethnography, and black feminism. Her first book manuscript, Rhythm Nation: West African Dance and the Politics of Diaspora, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Her second book project is a cultural history of black American dance. 

Johnson serves on the founding board for the Collegium for African Diaspora Dance, and on the Dance Studies Association Board of Directors. She is also a professional dancer, and has performed internationally.

Research Interests

Afro-diasporic dance, performance studies, theories of diaspora, black feminisms, ethnography, West African politics and culture, urban renewal and gentrification.

Publications

Johnson's work is published in or forthcoming from The Drama Review, ASAP Journal, Dance Research Journal, "The Routledge Companion to African American Theater and Performance", "Futures of Dance Studies", Theater Survey, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism, Aster(ix), Gawker, Colorlines, the Center for Black Studies Research, and Africa and Black Diaspora: An International Journal (Routledge). Her book, Rhythm Nation: West African Dance and the Politics of Diaspora, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.