Omi Osun Joni L. Jones Papers

This collection was processed in two parts. Part 1: Original Collection is the first donation made in 2018. Part 2: 2023 Addition includes materials recieved in 2023.

Part 1: Original Collection

The materials in this collection date from approximately 1976 to 2018, with the bulk of the materials originating between 1988 and 2009. The majority of items in this collection document Dr. Omi Osun Joni Lee Jones' professional activities as a performer, creator, scholar, administrator, and educator, particularly her academic work at The University of Texas at Austin beginning in 1990. A significant portion of this collection documents Jones' role as a professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, Theatre and Dance, and Communication Studies, including her teaching, research, and advising. The other major theme of the collection is her creative work as a playwright, performer, and dramaturg. As the materials in the collection show, the academic and artistic aspects of Jones' professional life often overlapped. The materials also document her political activism and travel and include personal correspondence and ephemera. The product of an expressive scholar and extensive collector, Jones’ papers highlight the deeply intertwined nature of her creative, scholarly, and political activities as a Black American artist and academic.

Many of the documents in the collection are textual, including Jones' writings, research materials, notes, syllabi, lesson plans, student assignments, and correspondence. There are also many documents from performances, including print materials like fliers, posters, programs, and scripts, as well as VHS recordings, DVDs, and cassette tapes. There is a small amount of material stored on compact discs and zip discs. There are also photographs, slides, negatives, plaques, and awards.

Jones’ papers are arranged into nine series: Education; Teaching, Service, and Administrative Materials; Writing; Performance; Correspondence; General Files and Ephemera; Photographs and Slides; Audio/Visual; and Awards. Due to the manner in which Jones kept her files, documents that might logically fit into one series or another may be located elsewhere in the collection (e.g. correspondence regarding performances may be in the Correspondence, Performance, and/or General Files and Ephemera series). Original file titles, assigned by Jones, were retained wherever possible and loose materials were grouped into files and assigned titles.

The Education series, arranged chronologically, is relatively small and provides some insight into Jones’ coursework, doctoral research and writing, and creative activity while studying at New York University (NYU). The bulk of this series is made up of writing, research, correspondence, and ephemera related to Jones' NYU dissertation, The Development of an African Based Dramatic Structure, and associated performance, Wild Women and Rolling Stones (1992). Student work from before her time at NYU is scant.

​​The Teaching, Service, and Administrative Materials series contains materials related to Jones’ teaching, advising, committee, and professional activities while a professor at UT, with some evidence of her teaching at Howard University from 1987-1989. Teaching materials include course packets, readings, notes, and student coursework. Several student theses and dissertations are also present and reflect Jones’ significant activity as an advisor of both masters and doctoral students. This series also contains personnel records and materials related to Jones professional duties across the three departments in which she taught during her tenure at UT. Also present are records of her teaching and research activity, including course materials, student work, conference materials, and funding applications from her one-year Fulbright Fellowship at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria from 1997 to 1998. Notably, there is limited documentation of her activities in leadership roles at the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, particularly as its director from 2008-2011. The files in this series are arranged chronologically.

The Writing series consists of files organized around Jones’ written works – both published and unpublished – on performance, pedagogy, Yoruba and African American theatre, race, and feminism. The series includes scripts, lectures, book reviews, an encyclopedia entry, essays, peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, a monograph, materials related to an edited volume, and an unrealized book proposal. Individual files are organized chronologically and primarily consist of folders created and kept by Jones containing drafts, published copies, notes, research materials, publication agreements, and correspondence with colleagues, collaborators, editors, and publishers.

The Performance series provides the best evidence of Jones’ substantial activity and creative output as a playwright, performance artist, activist, actor, and dramaturg – both within and beyond the academy in the U.S. and Nigeria. Individual files in this series contain a variety of materials, including public-facing scripts, playbills, and flyers, as well as behind-the-scenes cast lists and financial documents. The best-documented performance project is sista docta (1994), whereas Jones’ significant collaborative theatre projects like the Austin Project (tAP) are underrepresented. Throughout her career as a performer, she gravitated towards themes of Black identity, Black feminism, cultural belonging, and ethnography, which is documented throughout this series. Individual files are organized chronologically and most file titles were created by Jones at the time of use.

The Correspondence series documents Jones’ mostly unfiled exchanges with personal, academic, and professional contacts over the course of her professional career. Items in the series include letters, postcards, greeting cards, and printed emails from friends, collaborators, professional contacts, and former students and colleagues in both the U.S. and Nigeria. Some notable correspondents present in this series are Judith Rhodes, E. Patrick Johnson, and various UT Austin and Obafemi Awolowo University students, faculty, and administrators. The files are arranged chronologically and most titles were imposed by the archivists.

The General Files and Ephemera series contains a wide variety of materials – originally both foldered by Jones and loose – related to personal and professional projects and research. Subjects identified by Jones have been retained. Individual files contain notes, clippings, the written works of others, correspondence, and diverse ephemera covering a variety of subjects. Topics include Nigerian culture and politics; tropical disease research and medical preparation for travel to Nigeria; collected Nigerian periodicals; study materials and notes on the Yoruba language; research materials related to Yoruba culture, ritual, and religiosity; materials related to Jones’ personal relationship and professional collaborations with Nigerian spiritual leader Aina Alomo; records of her workshops and activism abroad in Barbados and, separately, in Israel and Palestine; materials related to an incomplete collaborative "Bibliography Project;" and various ephemera (programs, press, t-shirts, and a tote bag) related to performances attended, professional activities, and campus activism. This series provides the best evidence of Jones' interdisciplinary approach to research and the intertwined nature of her pedagogy, writing, performance, activism, and collaboration. This series is arranged chronologically.

The Photographs and Slides, Audio/Visual, and Awards series, arranged chronologically, document Dr. Jones’ participation and accomplishments in academic and artistic pursuits.

Part 2: 2023 Addition

The second part of this collection spans from approximately 1961 to 2023. The first series, Education and Personal, provides information about her early life and schooling from middle school through graduate study. The second series, Teaching and Scholarship, provides further insight about Jones’ work as a professional and an educator at a variety of institutions, including University of Maryland College Park, Howard University and notably, at UT as an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Theater and Dance. The Theatrical Jazz subseries includes manuscript draft materials of her 2015 publication bearing the same title.

The third series, Dramaturgy and Creative Works, contains materials which speak to Jones’ creative practice, including several works represented in the rest of the Papers such as sista docta and Broken Circles/A Journey Through Africa and the Self. Series four, Collaborators and Related Artists, includes various types of materials that pertain to Jones’ professional and personal relationships with many collaborators (such as Sharon Bridgforth and Daniel Alexander Jones) whose works provided inspiration or new avenues of study, especially for her critically acclaimed 2015 work Theatrical Jazz.

The fifth series, Nigeria and Ghana Materials, provides context for Jones’ work as an internationally renowned scholar; materials in this addition concern her study abroad and Fulbright work in Nigeria and Ghana. The sixth series, Audio/Visual, contains audiovisual material in a variety of physical formats. Digitization of audiovisual material is handled on a case-by-case basis upon request at the Benson. Lastly, the seventh series, Ephemera, houses artwork and objects from Jones’ time in Africa and Austin, Texas.