Paul Michael Thomson

Graciously, incredibly, the Black Women’s Studies Association—a professional organization dedicated to research that centers Black women—has awarded Paul Michael the Honorable Mention/Runner-Up for the Cheryl A. Wall Graduate Student Paper Prize for his essay, “Lorraine Hansberry & the Kitchen(ette) Sink.” As accolades are Paul Michael’s love language, he is extremely grateful to this incredible organization!

Paul Michael is proud to have received a short-term research fellowship from the New York Public Library. He will be digging through the archives at both the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Library for the Performing Arts as he continues work on his project, “‘It’s real to me’: Super Soul, Shifting Consciousness, and Seeing The Wiz Through a Black Arts Movement Lens.” It is an honor to be among the cohort of short-term scholars at NYPL, and Paul Michael cannot wait to share his findings with the world! Or at least those of you who visit this website!

Along with fellow scholar-artists Tatiana Rodriguez, Saharra Dixon, and Jennifer Onopa, Paul Michael recently presented at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference in Austin, TX this August. Their panel, “The Process Is the Product(ion), or: Collective Leadership Works”, was a practical workshop centering collaborative rehearsal room praxes and artistic administrative structures with origins in Theatre of the Oppressed and the Black Arts Movement, among others.

As part of the Power, Resistance, & Identity conference through the Departments of Sociology & Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Paul Michael recently presented his paper, “Restructuring Artistic Organizations Guided by Black Feminist Principles, or: Actually Sharing the Spotlight”. The feedback from the room was incredibly generative and he looks forward to continuing to look at what happens when we allow the tenets of Black Feminism to be a starting point for discussions at artistic institutions.

Recently, PM worked with Mass Mentoring Partnership facilitating “Antiracism & Storytelling”. The interactive workshop, rooted in the work of theorists like Audre Lorde and Patricia Hill Collins, demonstrated the radical power of telling one’s story and connecting those stories to the structural circumstances that organize our lives. If you are interested in working with Paul Michael to facilitate similar workshops for your organization, reach out here!

Paul Michael is currently a Graduate Fellow with the W.E.B. Du Bois Center, the archival site of Du Bois’ many papers. His article, “‘I thought I loved him, […] the pale coward’: The Politics of Interracial Romance in W.E.B. Du Bois’ Seven-Up,” produced through his work as a Du Bois Center fellow, is currently under review for publication. “‘I thought I loved him’” dives into Du Bois work as a playwright, demonstrating the ways his creative endeavors in works such as Seven-Up complement and complicate the political philosophies he disseminated elsewhere.

In the summer of 2022, Paul Michael was honored to join the incredible cohort of the Black Metropolis Research Consortium’s Summer-Short Term Fellowship. As the BMRC states, “The Summer Short-term Fellowship Program has engaged scholars, artists, writers, and public historians to better formulate new historical narratives of the Black experience.” Paul Michael presented his findings in “‘the black ensemble is a necessity’: Theatre, Chicago, the Black Arts Movement & Beyond.” Moderated by Dr. Thabiti Lewis, Paul Michael’s project reflected archival research from the Harold Washington Library, Woodson Regional Library, and Northwestern University and investigated how Chicago theatres each uniquely developed work with Black dramatists in the 1960s and 70s amidst the cultural, political, and social energies of the Black Arts Movement—and what we can learn from them today.

Paul Michael is pursuing his PhD in Afro-American Studies through the W.E.B. Du Bois Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research centers on Black Feminist drama and dramatists, the new play development praxes of the Black Arts Movement, modalities of decentralizing power in artistic institutions, and the intersection between creativity and Black liberation. Buttressed by his experience and positionality in the professional theatre landscape, Paul Michael seeks to interrogate and dismantle racism and white supremacy through (and within) artistic practice.

Most importantly, he hopes to learn how to use words like “praxes” and “positionality” with just slightly more ease.