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Northwestern School of Communication

Elizabeth W. Son

Associate Professor; Area Head, Theatre History/Literature/Criticism/Theory
Dr. Elizabeth Son is an award-winning author, educator, and public scholar who is dedicated to researching and uplifting women’s involvement in the performing arts and social activism.

Department

Theatre

Area(s) of Expertise

Asian American studies, Performance Theory, Performing Arts, Social Activism and Impact, Theatre History
Elizabeth W. Son

Dr. Elizabeth Son is an interdisciplinary performance scholar who is, at turns, an ethnographer, historian, and cultural critic. Her research and teaching are at the intersections of theatre and performance studies, Asian American studies, Asian studies, and gender studies. Son’s transnational research explores the interplay between art, culture, and politics. She specifically looks at how theatre, multidisciplinary art, and other forms of embodied practice such as testimony and political actions illuminate the experiences of Korean, Korean diasporic, and Asian American women, thereby providing a critical space for grappling with historical legacies, cultivating community, and envisioning new futures. She teaches courses on race, gender, and culture; trauma, memory, and violence; public humanities in practice; and theatre and social change in U.S. and global contexts.

Based on extensive archival and ethnographic research, Son's award-winning book Embodied Reckonings: "Comfort Women," Performance, and Transpacific Redress (2018) examines the political and cultural aspects of contemporary performances (protests, tribunals, theatre, and memorial building) in South Korea, Japan, and the United States that have grappled with the history of Japanese military sexual slavery. She is working on a book titled Holding Histories on contemporary Korean diasporic women’s activist and aesthetic practices in relation to histories of social and political violence. Her essays have appeared in Asian Theatre Journal, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Theater, e-misférica, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, Race and Performance After Repetition, and The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Performance Historiography. She also writes op-eds, which have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Review of Books and The Hill.

Son's work has been recognized with national fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fulbright Program, and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation). Her first book received four accolades: the Book Award in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies; the Bonnie Ritter Outstanding Feminist Book Award from the National Communication Association, Feminist and Gender Studies Division; the Outstanding Book Award from the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, & Gender; and Finalist for the George Freedley Memorial Award from the Theatre Library Association. She is also the recipient of the Florence Howe Award for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship from the Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages, an allied organization of the MLA, and Honorable Mention for the Gerald Kahan Scholar's Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research. Her teaching has been recognized twice with the Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring and the Karl Rosengren Faculty Mentoring Award at Northwestern University.

Son has served as the Director of the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theatre and Drama (IPTD) Program and is the Area Head for Theatre History/Literature/Criticism/Theory in the Department of Theatre at Northwestern University. She is also affiliated faculty in the Program in American Studies, Asian American Studies Program, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and the Department of Performance Studies, as well as a faculty member in the Asian Studies Graduate Cluster. 

Son is also on the editorial board for Theatre Journal and the series co-editor (with Wendy Arons and Melissa Blanco Borelli) of Women's Innovations in Theatre, Dance, and Performance (Bloomsbury). 

Dedicated to training the next generation of publicly-engaged humanities scholars, Son is a lead contributor to Preparing Publicly Engaged Scholars: A Guide to Innovation in Doctoral Education and speaks nationally at conferences and institutions on strategies for supporting the public humanities.

Through community outreach, education, and political actions—Son, as an ally, also works with local organizations to advocate for gender-based justice, equity, and empowerment. As an inaugural Mellon/ACLS Scholars & Society fellow, she was a scholar-in-residence at KAN-WIN: Empowering Women in the Asian American Community, merging her interests in social justice and the public humanities. In partnership with KAN-WIN and Awakenings Gallery, she was also a member of the curation team for the art exhibit "Embodying Justice." Son continues to partner with KAN-WIN as a co-founding member of their "comfort women" justice advocacy team.

Education

  • PhD American Studies, Yale University
  • MPhil American Literature, University of Cambridge
  • BA English, Wellesley College

Select Awards and Fellowships

  • Faculty Fellowship, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern University, 2024
  • Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring, School of Communication, Northwestern University, 2024
  • Bonnie Ritter Outstanding Feminist Book Award, National Communication Association, Feminist and Gender Studies Division, 2020
  • Book Award in Humanities and Cultural Studies (Visual, Performance, and Media Studies), Association for Asian American Studies, 2020
  • Finalist, George Freedley Memorial Award, Theatre Library Association, 2019
  • Outstanding Book Award, Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, & Gender, 2019
  • Scholars & Society Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, 2019
  • Clarence Simon Award for Outstanding Teaching and Mentoring, School of Communication, Northwestern University, 2018
  • Karl Rosengren Faculty Mentoring Award, Office of Undergraduate Research, Northwestern University, 2018
  • Gerald Kahan Scholar's Prize, Honorable Mention, American Society for Theatre Research, 2017
  • Florence Howe Award for Outstanding Feminist Scholarship, Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages, 2016
  • Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2015

Undergraduate Courses

  • Performing Asian America
  • War, Gender, and Memory in Asian American Performance
  • Asian/Black Connections in Performance
  • Performance and Politics in Asia
  • Contemporary Women Playwrights
  • Theatre in Context
  • Theatre and Social Change
  • Theatre and Violence

Graduate Courses

  • Race and the Body
  • Violence, Memory, and Performance
  • Performance and Politics in Asia
  • Research Methods
  • Research Design and Prospectus Writing
  • Public Humanities in Practice