 Profile
A highly qualified theatre and performance studies scholar, Karima Robinson is an accomplished expert in her field. Employed as an Assistant Professor of Drama Studies at SUNY Purchase, Karima Robinson has already made an impact in the department, since joining its staff in 2005, and has been awarded the 2008 Faculty Development Award and 2006 Faculty Support Award. Robinson’s academic specialties include African and African-American theatre, American dance theatre, Western theatre traditions, critical performance ethnography, postcolonial Caribbean theatre, and African diasporic feminist theory.
Before committing to a life of academic scholarship, Karima Robinson received her undergraduate education at Wellesley College, where she was an active and dedicated student and earned her B.A. degree in English and Africana Studies. Indicating an interest in performance early in her college career, Robinson was a member of the school’s Theatre Club and successfully staged a performance of a one-act play she had written, entitled “A Southern Gentleman.” Karima Robinson was also a presence in the African-American student group Ethos, as editor of the organization’s literary magazine.
After her studies at Wellesley College, Robinson received the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that enabled her to travel to Jamaica and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe she worked with a theatre company to develop new plays about significant social and political issues. She developed her interest in African theatre at this time.
From here, Karima Robinson applied to and was accepted into the prestigious graduate school of Northwestern University. A recipient of multiple fellowships and grants, Robinson took her studies out of the classroom and continued studying for her dissertation through intensive fieldwork in Jamaica. Accumulating a significant amount of research during her studies in Jamaica, Karima Robinson came back to Northwestern in 2003 to work in the African-American Studies department as a Graduate Research Assistant.
In 2007, Karima Robinson successfully completed her dissertation, entitled “Stages of Liberation: Ritual, Nationalism, and Women’s Cultural Production in Jamaica's Pre-independence Era,” and received her Ph.D. from Northwestern. Professionally affiliated with the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR), Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS), and Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), Robinson continues to be a dedicated scholar and leader in her field.
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