Sarah J. Townsend received her doctorate from the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at New York University. A specialist in Latin American theater and performance, her research centers on the relationship between politics and aesthetics and explores theater’s links to other media, particularly radio. Ms. Townsend is the co-editor (with Diana Taylor) of Stages of Conflict: A Critical Anthology of Latin American Theater and Performance and has published articles in journals such as Modernism/Modernity and Revista Iberoamericana. While at Berkeley, she will work on her book manuscript, which examines the “unfinished” art of theater as a site where avant-garde intellectuals in Mexico and Brazil re-imagine the role of the aesthetic in relation to an emerging mass public. She also hopes to begin exploratory research for a project on the cultural dimensions of fascist movements in Latin America.