« HOME

The Center

Fellowships

Workshops

Events

Digital

2005-2006 Fellows


Christen Smith

Stanford University
Department of Cultural and Social Anthroplogy

Christen Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University and received her A.B. in Anthropology from Princeton University in 1999.  Her current areas of interest are performance, performativity, and the politics of race and citizenship in the Americas.  She has spent the past two years working on her dissertation project in Brazil.

Project Summary

Smith's dissertation investigates theater as a tool for social protest among black residents in the peripheral neighborhoods of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.  Taking a critical look at how both race and class determine everyday reality for these residents, the project explores the connections between the use of theater as a political platform and discourses of race, nation and citizenship in Brazil.