Alejandra Vela-Martínez
Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures (Spanish)
Specializations:
20th-21st Century Mexican Cultural Studies
Transnational mass culture, archives, feminine periodicals and literature
Diasporic and border feminine literature
their reception and preservation throughout Latin American Modernity
Course idea:
Open to collaborating on a topic related to formations of identity and/or popular culture
My research critically examines the construction of symbolic value in Latin American literature and culture, with a particular focus on Mexico, through the lens of Gender, Women, and Sexualities Studies. I explore the creation of symbolic capital using two main approaches: historical research based on archival work with understudied materials, and critical readings informed by reception theory and affect theory to highlight biases in cultural consumption. My analyses question the institutionalized margins of official culture from a gendered perspective.
As a whole, my research questions the Latin American cultural field by examining how different "counter-archives," as I call them in my current book manuscript, illuminate literary and cultural history involving feminine writers and materials. I defend the need, within the Humanities, to celebrate the ways femininity has intervened in the public sphere, while rethinking the limits of what is considered Literature and Culture. This is a necessary step towards a reconceptualization of intellectual history based on feminized aesthetics that uncover numerous female and women writers, editors, and readers formerly excluded from the canon.
My interests lie at the intersection of Literary History, Women and Gender Studies, and the History of Material Culture. I challenge prevailing feminist historical perspectives that dismiss cultural products as too conservative or patriarchal, advocating for the recognition of diverse forms of feminine participation in the public sphere throughout history. This approach seeks to restore the agency of women and other feminine subjects in shaping their destinies.
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Tesla Cariani
Lecturer of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Specializations:
Critical media studies
Literary studies
Queer theory
Trans and two spirit studies
Postcolonial studies
Affect theory
Popular culture
Course idea:
None specified
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Emily Fairchild
Lecturer on Sociology and Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Harvard
Specializations:
Micro-processes that sustain and challenge understanding of gender
Interplay among levels of analysis: institutional, interactional, individual especially as related to gendered rituals (ex: weddings), sports, and higher education
Course idea:
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Patricia Davis
Associate Professor, Media & Design, Northeastern
Specializations:
Memory
Race
Gender
Representation
Visual culture
Material culture
Corporeality
Media studies
Course idea:
Memory and Gender: this course will explore the ways in which women have used various modes of historical production to represent their experiences of and perspectives on the past. It will include studies of women's performance, visual and material culture, filmmaking, literature, and other forms of memory work.
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Brian Horton
Assistant Profressor, Anthropology, Brandeis
Specializations:
queer anthropology;
queer of color critique/queer theory;
popular culture;
race;
digital anthropology;
virtual subjectivities;
social media;
South Asia
Course idea:
None specified
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Timothy Oleksiak
Assistant Professor, English, UMass Boston
Specializations:
Rhetoric and composition teacher-scholar with a specialization in listening as a rhetorical act, composition pedagogy, and queer feminist rhetoric.
Course idea:
A feminist rhetoric and composition studies course. The course functions as an introduction to feminist approaches to rhetoric.
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K.J. Rawson
Associate Professor, English, Northeastern University
Specializations:
Digital humanities
Rhetoric
LGBTQ+ and Feminist Studies
Archives
Course idea:
None specified
K.J. Rawson is founder and director of the Digital Transgender Archive, an award-winning online repository of trans-related historical materials, and he is the co-chair of the editorial board of the Homosaurus, an international LGBTQ linked data vocabulary.
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Hillary Chute
Distinguished Professor, English, Northeastern University
Specializations:
Visual culture and feminisms
Comics and graphic narratives
Contemporary literature
Course idea:
None specified
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Denise Khor
Associate Professor, Asian American Studies & Visual Studies and Associate Director, Asian American Studies
Specializations:
Film and Media History
Early Cinema
Nontheatrical Exhibition
Photography and Visual Culture
Asian American and Critical Ethnic Studies
Course idea:
None specified
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Rani Neutill
Lecturer, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Specializations:
Asian American Literature and Film
WOC memoir
Creative nonfiction
Course idea:
Gender and Sexuality in Asian American Literature and Film - This course examines works across a range of genres by Asian-American writers, focusing on the intersection of race, gender formation, and sexuality. We will put conceptions of feminism, queerness, and LGBT identity in conversations about ethnicity, citizenship, power, activism, art and politics, representation, race and resistance and collective as well as individual histories. As a class that focuses on film and literature, we will close read texts as a means to discuss the politics of representation, how a text can inform the world and vice versa. In this class, we will create a space of community forged by respect and the understanding that marginalized voices have been historically de-centered. We will focus on the diversity of Asian American stories and move away from generalized, romanticized, and essentialized notions of Asian American identities.
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Wan Tang
Assistant Professor, Hispanic Studies, Boston College
Specializations:
19th-21st-century Spain
the Spanish Civil War
Contemporary Spanish literature and visual culture
The fantastic and Gothic fiction
Monster theory
Aging studies, television studies, critical race and migration studies
The Asian diaspora
Course idea:
None specified
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Suzanne Leonard
Professor, English & Critical Race, Gender, and Cultural Studies, Simmons University
suzanne.leonard@simmons.edu
Specializations:
American film and television studies
Feminist media studies
Women's literature, gender and cultural theory
Literary interpretation
20th and 21st century American literature
Course idea:
None specified
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Kristin Peterson
Assistant Professor, Communication, Boston College
Specializations:
Religion
Digital media
Feminist activism
Religious representation and the media
Course idea:
None specified
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Kareem Khubchandani
Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor, Drama & Dance, Tufts University
Specializations:
Performance studies
Queer studies
South Asian studies
Course idea:
Non specified
Kareem Khubchandani (any pronouns) is Associate Professor of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020), which received the 2019 CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies Fellowship award, the 2021 Dance Studies Association de la Torre Bueno best book award, and the 2021 ATHE Outstanding Book Award. Kareem is co-editor of Queer Nightlife (University of Michigan Press) and curator of www.criticalauntystudies.com. He holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, and previously served as Embrey Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Sarah Sobieraj
Associate Professor, Sociology, Tufts
Specializations:
Digital abuse and harassment
Media, politics, and culture in the U.S.
Social movements
Course idea:
Non specified
Sarah Sobieraj is an award-winning teacher and researcher with expertise in media, politics, and culture. She is the author of The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility (Oxford University Press 2014) with Jeff Berry, and Soundbitten: The Perils of Media-Centered Political Activism (NYU 2011). Her most recent journal articles can be found in PS: Political Science & Politics, Poetics, Political Communication, Social Problems, Sociological Theory, Sociological Inquiry, and The Sociological Quarterly. Her work has also been featured in venues such as The New York Times, Politico, CNN, PBS, The American Prospect, National Review, Pacific Standard, and Salon. Professor Sobieraj directs the Digital Sexism Project, investigating the impact of gender-based attacks against women online on political discourse. In her free time she enjoys reading, listening to storytelling podcasts, and talking politics.
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Carney Maley
Lecturer of Women's and Gender Studies, UMass Boston
Specializations:
Women in U.S. social movements
Women in 20th century literature
Gender and popular culture
Course idea:
None specified
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Lynne Byall Benson
Lecturer of Women's and Gender Studies, UMass Boston
Specializations:
- History of women’s education
- Women and the media
Course idea:
None specified