2023-24 New Faculty

Iyanna Hamby (she/her) is a sixth-year doctoral student in Theater and Performance Studies at UCLA. Prior to beginning her doctoral studies, Iyanna earned her BA in English from Fisk University. Iyanna’s ongoing research investigates black rendered counter-historical projects and embodied practice. Her dissertation is titled, Re-Performing American Slavery: Reckoning with Archival Opacities & Fabulating Black Futures Post-Reconstruction to Present. In her research she extends emerging black feminist and queer scholarship from theorists such as Daphne Brooks, Saidiya Hartman, and Tavia Nyong’o. She has recently completed a chapter titled: “Mythic Configurations of the Vessel in Gem of the Ocean & Reckoning with Recovery” which can be read in the forthcoming anthology on August Wilson in Context (Cambridge UP, 2023).
 
Iyanna looks forward to joining the WGSS department and teaching classes revolving Black Feminist & Queer Performance/Studies. Iyanna enjoys baking, watching Lord of the Rings whenever she gets the chance, and listening to the Spider-Verse soundtracks.