RaceB4Race provides professional networking opportunities and a community for scholars of color across disciplines. 

Two Black scholars sit on couches facing one another. The person facing the camera is smiling.

Dr. Thompson (right) walks with Dr. Cornesha Tweede, left, a postdoctoral research scholar and part of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Two Black scholars walk on the sidewalk outside a college campus building.

Dr. Thompson’s academic research explores history of performance as it relates to race and nontraditional casting. 

Three decorative objects sit on a bookshelf: a bust of Shakespeare, a human skull, and a bust of Elvis.

Dr. Thompson has a long history in the theater, including serving as president of the Shakespeare Association of America and chair of the Council of Scholars at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, New York. 

A piles of ticket cards, pamplets, and other papers. On the top, a ticket stub from the Barbican Theatre reads "Ayanna Thompson, 18 March 2017."

Headshot of Ayanna Thompson

We’ve deprived ourselves of thinking about how race plays into world-making—to our
detriment.

RaceB4Race’s network extends across literary and cultural disciplines, creating a dialogue on race and history that wouldn’t normally exist in the academic community. 

A Black scholar stands in front of a bookshelves the run from floor to ceiling and are covered with books. The scholar is dressed in black and white, and wears black high-heeled shoes. 

An article about RaceB4Race, a symposium and networking initiative for scholars of color that is based at Arizona State University. 

RaceB4Race: Sustaining, Building, Innovating

Dr. Ayanna Thompson, founder of RaceB4Race, is a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the director of its Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. 

A Black woman stands in a doorway that leads to an office. A sign on the door reads, "Research In Progress." 

RaceB4Race: How it Started and How it’s Growing

Artists as Catalysts

Artists as Catalysts Navigation Image

Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

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Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Power of the Word

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 