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Guest Editorial Board

Guest Editorial Board Mohamadreza Babaee Lindsey R. Barr Jessica Bashline Katherine M. Carter Anna Morton Megan Monaghan Rivas Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon Short Bios Mohamadreza Babaee, M.F.A., Ph.D., is an Iranian performance and digital arts studies scholar and transdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on US immigration law, diaspora politics, […]

Between Blackface and Bondage: The Incompletely Forgotten Failure of The Underground Railroad‘s 1879 Midwestern Tour

In 1879, nineteen-year-old Pauline Hopkins’s musical slave drama, The Underground Railroad, flopped. Reviews panned the production, suggesting the plagiaristic knock-off of Joseph Bradford’s Out of Bondage “lacked interest and was devoid of plot.” Audiences noted the lackluster performances, asserting “the company can’t sing like the Hyers sisters” (the pioneering African […]