La Donna Forsgren has been selected as the winner of the 2022 Marian Mullin Hancock Teaching Award – Gender Studies Program.
La Donna L. Forsgren is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre and concurrent faculty in the Gender Studies Program. Prior to joining the faculty at Notre Dame, she taught theatre history, playwriting, and dramaturgy at the University of Oregon and Miami University. She has received numerous awards and competitive grants for her research on the Black Arts Movement, including ISLA's Large Grant for Research and Creative Work (2018), the Mid-America Theatre Conference’s Robert A. Schanke Theatre Research Award (2016), University of Oregon Humanities and Creative Arts Grant (2014), and Consortium for Faculty Diversity at Liberal Arts Colleges Dissertation Fellowship (2011). Her research has appeared in Theatre Topics, Theatre History Studies, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters, Continuum: the Journal of Black Drama, Theatre and Performance, and New England Theatre Journal. Her first book, In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement, investigates the works and careers of Martie Evans-Charles, J.e. Franklin, and Sonia Sanchez (Northwestern University Press 2018). She is completing her second book manuscript, Sistuhs in the Struggle: An Oral History of the Black Arts Movement. She currently serves as Associate Conference Planner for the Mid-America Theatre Conference.
The Marian Mullin Hancock Teaching Award, founded in 2016, is an annual award that honors teaching excellence in the area of gender studies at the University of Notre Dame. Via this award faculty members are recognized for their essential contributions to the intellectual growth of Notre Dame students and development of the Gender Studies Program through excellent teaching in interdisciplinary courses focused on gender. The award is named for Marian Mullin Hancock (1903-1992), a benefactor of the Gender Studies Program who attended Saint Mary’s Academy and received many honors for her philanthropic work, including the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice medal.
The award ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday, April 27, at 4:00 p.m. in the Gender Studies Program office (215 O’Shaughnessy).