Meet Derek Goldman, PhD

Derek Goldman
Derek Goldman’s GU360 Profile

Derek Goldman is Chair of the Department of Performing Arts and Director of the Theater & Performance Studies Program. He is also Professor of Theater and Performance Studies at Georgetown University with a joint appointment in the School of Foreign Service as Professor of Global Performance, Culture and Politics. He is co-Founding Director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, the first signature joint initiative of the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown College. He co-founded The Lab with Ambassador Cynthia Schneider in 2012 with a mission “to harness the power of performance to humanize global politics” (www.globallab.georgetown.edu (new window)). In 2015 he was honored to receive the prestigious President’s Award for Distinguished Scholar-Teachers.

Featured media, scholarship, and events

How to Have a Conversation banner

How to Have a Conversation, Episode 1: “We Were Confronting Each Other and We Were Being Brave”, María José Pareja Rozo Explores How In Your Shoes Facilitates Conversations

August 31st, 2022

María José Pareja Rozo, Graduate Student of the Medical Humanities Initiative in the 2021-2022 academic year, launched How to Have a Conversation, a podcast about how the arts and humanities engage us in conversation. The pilot episode focuses on the In Your Shoes project, co-created by Derek Goldman.…

Strathairn starts in "Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski", performing the role of Jan Karski

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski Feature Film, Co-Written and Co-Directed by Derek Goldman, Premiered at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

July 24th, 2022

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski, the celebrated play written by Clark Young and Derek Goldman, has been developed into a cinematic adaptation, which premiered at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival on July 24, 2022. The project was directed by Goldman and Jeff Hutchens, produced by documentary filmmaker Eva Anisko, and with David Strathairn reprising his role as Karski, all of whom attended the premier. The post-film Q&A was moderated by Carey Perloff, former Artistic Director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.…

In Your Shoes Reckoning with Our PastImagining Our Future performance

“In Your Shoes: Reckoning with Our Past/Imagining Our Future“ Closes the 2022 Lannan Symposium “Beyond Identity: Reimagining the American Narrative”

March 23rd, 2022

This performance, which was the closing event of the 2022 Lannan Symposium, “Beyond Identity: Reimagining the American Narrative,” displayed The Lab’s award-winning In Your Shoes methodology, created and developed around the world by Derek Goldman, in which participants have deep, open conversations around a topic and then perform one another’s perspectives.…

Derek Goldman

“An Innovative Georgetown Lab Looks to Theater to Quell Political Fires”, The Washington Post Talks About the “In Your Shoes” Project, Co-Created by Derek Goldman

February 12th, 2021

The Washington Post highlights Derek Goldman’s methodology of “performing one another”, as well as many other initiatives by the Laboratory for Global Performance, including “Here I Am,” a digital performance piece that premiered in April 2021; and and “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski,” written by Clark Young and Derek Goldman and directed by Goldman.…