Ohio State nav bar

Theatre Faculty Member Named Fulbright Scholar

March 13, 2013

Theatre Faculty Member Named Fulbright Scholar

Ana Elena Puga, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre, has been selected as a 2013-2014 Fulbright Scholar. This prestigious award will allow Puga to continue her research in Mexico for a project that explores the reliance on dramatic strategies in late 20th and early 21st century artistic and social performances featuring undocumented migrants—especially women and children—from Latin America.

"It is wonderful to have the time and resources necessary to focus on my research and writing for an academic year,” said Puga. “My project, Staging Migrant Suffering, explores how undocumented migrants and their advocates use performative strategies in social life to demand respect for their rights as human beings. Since immigration reform is in the works now, this research feels extremely urgent and the award could not have been more timely."

Puga is a scholar, translator, and dramaturg, whose research studies the intersection of aesthetics and politics in Latin American and U.S. Latino performance. She is the author of several books and is the co-founder of LaMicro Theatre, which stages contemporary Spanish, Latin American and U.S.Latino plays in English and bilingual productions. Before becoming a scholar, Puga was a journalist for several publications, including the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and The Boston Globe. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1990-1991 and a fellow at Stanford's Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity in 2010-2011. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago, and Master of Fine Arts and Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from the Yale School of Drama.

The Fulbright Scholar Program offers U.S. faculty, administrators and professionals grants to lecture, conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields, or to participate in seminars. The Fulbright Program, the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government, is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.

News Filters: