Meenakshi Ponnuswami

Meenakshi Ponnuswami came to Bucknell in 1991 right after earning her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She teaches courses on modern drama and social justice, American masculinity in performance, African American theatre of the 1950s and 60s, and American ethnic comedy. Professor Ponnuswami's scholarship has focused on postwar British and American theatre, most recently on black British and British Asian playwrights, race and comedy, and the theatre of the Civil Rights and Black Power era. She was the 2018 recipient of Bucknell's Writing Across the Curriculum Award of Excellence.

Educational Background

• B.A. (English Hons), St. Stephens College, University of Delhi, India

• M.A in English, University of Delhi, India

• Ph.D. in English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Teaching Interests

• Theatre and the Black Power Movement

• Masculinity in Modern American Performance

• Foundation Seminar: Whose Story Is History?

• Ethnic Comedy

Scholarly Interests

• Postwar British and American theatre
• Black British and British Asian playwrights
• Ethnic Comedy

Selected Publications

"Alice Childress (1916-1994)." In The Routledge Anthology of Women's Theatre Theory and Dramatic Criticism. Eds. J. Ellen Gainor and Catherine Burroughs. London: Routledge, 2023: 285-293 (in press).

"Blackface in the Comedy Class." In Teaching Comedy. Ed. Bev Hougue. New York: Modern Languages Association, 2023: 38-45.

“Alia Bano’s Shades.” Contemporary Women Playwrights. Eds. Lesley Ferris and Penelope Farfan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021.

"Taking the Stage: Black and Asian Theatre in Britain." The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing. Eds. Sheila Nastase and Mark U. Stein. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2020: 368-385.

"British Muslim Playwrights on the Feminist Stage." Contemporary Theatre Review. 28.3 (2018): 378-389. DOI: 10.1080/10486801.2018.1475361.