Pria Willams, Ph.D.

Instructional Assistant Professor of Theatre and Film

Pria is theatre scholar, teacher, director, and sound designer. As a scholar, she is deeply invested in understanding how the stories people tell themselves—through drama, film, performance, and history—shape human behavior and thought. Her research focuses on cross-cultural avant-garde, cognitive science, popular culture, and gender within the US, Europe, and Japan during the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to theatre, she also does occasional web and graphic design, dramatic and fiction writing, and composes electronic/ambient music. Samples of her work can be found at petercwood.com. 

Pria's central focus on GWS issues is on how gender is represented in popular culture and she has published on gender representation in film (Aliens), and theatre (Into the Woods). She is also working to do more to bring attention to women avant-garde and experimental performance artists by teaching on the subject in the fall of 2018 and has begun researching a number of issues related to polyamory/consensual non-monogamy and theatre/performance.

Gender Studies -Related Research Interests: Gender is representation in popular culture, women's avant-garde