Associate Dean Raquel Monroe Receives 2022 Mid-Career Award from Dance Studies Association

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September 1, 2022

Associate dean and performance scholar Raquel Monroe smiles broadly

Raquel Monroe, professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and associate dean for graduate education and academic affairs in the UT College of Fine Arts, recently received a major award from the Dance Studies Association. In August, Monroe was honored with the 2022 Mid-Career Award, which recognizes leadership of mid-career scholars in the development of the dance studies field. In the award citation, the committee shares more about her contributions to the field:

“The committee recognizes Raquel Monroe for the major contributions she has made to the field of dance studies as a researcher, pedagogue, artist and political agitator. Monroe’s generous vision and commitment to social justice is borne out in the impact her work has had on the individuals, communities, institutions and critical discourses with which she has engaged, and which are set to continue as she begins her new role as Associate Dean in The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts. Monroe’s antiracist and liberatory pedagogies have catalyzed change for her students and educators across dance via her broadly read article “I Don’t Want to Do African. . . What About My Technique?” (2011) and her important public speaking engagements. Monroe has recently served as Director of Academic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Columbia College, Chicago. Her labour in the demanding area of institutional DEI work is vital to higher education and a testament to her integrity as a leader in the field. Monroe’s ethical, collectively-attuned leadership extends to her artistic work with Propelled Animals collective, who embed provocative art in unconventional spaces. And the research provocations delivered in her publications and public scholarship on popular dance will continue to reshape the terms of critical dance studies in her forthcoming monograph on Queer Black praxis in public space, on screen and stage. Monroe’s colleagues praise her patience, humor, compassion, and fierce joy; and in this spirit, DSA recognizes Raquel Monroe as an outstanding mid-career scholar in dance studies.”

Monroe is an interdisciplinary performance scholar, artist, administrator and mother whose research interests include Black social dance, queer black feminisms, popular culture and the efficacy of collaboration to create social change. Monroe’s scholarship appears in journals and anthologies on race, sexuality, dance and popular culture.

She joined the College of Fine Arts as a faculty member and administrator this past summer, and in her new role as associate dean, her portfolio is focused on graduate studies and research and creative practice. She previously taught at Columbia College Chicago as an associate professor of dance, and she was the co-director of diversity, equity and inclusion. In that role, she developed policies and procedures for hiring diverse faculty, created and facilitated pedagogy workshops and offered programming grants and antiracism training for faculty and staff throughout the institution.