Christina McMahon
Christina S. McMahon is a candidate in Northwestern University’s interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in theatre and drama. Her dissertation research queries how the conditions of global circulation inherent to international theatre festivals critically transform performances of national identity in Cape Verde, West Africa.
Targeting festival productions depicting oral histories, female labor roles and adaptations of Western plays, her research more broadly analyzes the reverberations of Portuguese colonialism in Africa and the ways in which cultural productions mediate political alliances among nations.
A future book project will examine how political parties and guerilla soldiers in Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau used role-playing and propagandist theatre to mobilize mass movements during the wars of liberation in Portuguese-speaking Africa (1963-74).
The recipient of a Fulbright-Hays research grant, the American Society for Theatre Research Dissertation Award, a Mellon Travel Grant and the New Scholar’s Prize from the International Federation for Theatre Research, McMahon has published articles in Theatre Research International, Theatre History Studies and The Latin American Theatre Journal.