ACADEMICS
I am currently an associate professor at Louisiana State University in the Department of Communication Studies. I am an affiliate faculty member in the Department of African and African American Studies as well as the Screen Arts Program and the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. I am an interdisciplinary rhetoric and cultural critic, and a justice-driven teacher of communication. My research explores how differences and disparities are communicated and naturalized through media in contemporary US Culture, and also how communication is wielded by historically marginalized bodies and communities as a resource for creating a more just and equitable world. My research has been published in Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Women’s Studies in Communication, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, and Journal of Homosexuality.
You can learn more about my academic work below, or check out my current full vita here.
EDUCATION
PHD, COMMUNICATION STUDIES
August 2009 - August 2013
The University of Texas at Austin
Graduated with a doctoral portfolio in Women’s & Gender Studies
Advisor: Dana L. Cloud
Dissertation: Disciplining Mommy: Rhetorics of Reproduction in Contemporary Maternity Culture
MA, COMMUNICATION STUDIES
August 2007 - May 2009
The University of Texas at Austin
Advisor: Dana L. Cloud
Thesis: Destabilizing Science from the Right: The Rhetoric of Heterosexual Victimhood in the World Health Organization’s 2008 HIV/AIDS Controversy
BA, WOMEN & GENDER STUDIES
August 2003 - May 2007
Arizona State University
BA, POLITICAL SCIENCE
August 2003 - May 2007
Arizona State University
Graduated with a certificate in International Studies
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
RECALLING PERSKY
White Rage and Intimate Publicity After Brock Turner
Journal of Communication Inquiry (2019)
OUR BODIES ARE NOT TERRA NULLIUS
Building a Decolonial Feminist Resistance to Gendered Violence
Women's Studies in Communication 42:3 (2019): 347-370.
BETWEEN BODIES & INSTITUTIONS
Gendered Violence as Co-Constitutive
Women’s Studies in Communication 41:2 (2018): 95-99
CRITICAL APPROACHES TO MOTHERHOOD
Oxford Encyclopedia for Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (August 2018)
CRITIQUING STATE AND GENDERED VIOLENCE IN THE AGE OF #METOO
Quarterly Journal of Speech 104:3 (2018): 329-344
‘STRICTLY AN ACT OF STREET VIOLENCE’
Intimate Publicity and Affective Divestment in the New Orleans Mother’s Day Shooting
Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 14:4 (2017): 334-350
Received the 2018 Outstanding Article Award from the American Studies Division of the National Communication Association.
THE SELF-MADE MOM
Neoliberalism and Masochistic Motherhood in Home Birth Videos on YouTube
Women’s Studies in Communication 39:1 (February 2016): 47-68
DESTABILIZING SCIENCE FROM THE RIGHT
The Rhetoric of Heterosexual Victimhood in the World Health Organization’s 2008 HIV/AIDS Controversy
Journal of Homosexuality 60:8 (August 2013): 1164-1180
TEACHING @ LSU
Graduate and undergraduate courses taught at Louisiana State University in the Department of Communication Studies (CMST); Women's, Gender, &Sexuality Studies Program (WGS); and Honors College (HNRS).
CMST 4971: GENDER, RACE, & CLASS IN MEDIA
CMST 7966: QUEER FUTURES
CMST 7971: FEMINIST CRITIQUE
CMST 4107: COMMUNICATION AS CULTURE
HNRS 2000: CRITICAL ANALYSIS
CMST 7966: IDEOLOGY & HEGEMONY
CMST 3169: RHETORIC OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
CMST 3300: RHETORICAL CRITICISM
CMST 3900: COMMUNICATION & SEXUALITIES
CMST 3900: RAPE, CONSENT, & CULTURE
CMST 2063: ARGUMENTATION AND DEBATE
CMST 3115: COMMUNICATION AND GENDER
WGS 2500: INTRODUCTION TO WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES
WGS 3150: FEMINIST THEORY
TEACHING @ USM
Graduate and undergraduate courses taught at the University of Southern Mississippi in the Department of Communication Studies.
CMS 740: RHETORICAL CRITICISM
TEACHING @ WSU
Graduate and undergraduate courses taught at Wayne State University in the Department of Communication and the Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies Program.
COM 1010: ORAL COMMUNICATION
COM 2010: ARGUMENTATION AND DEBATE
COM 2500: ORAL INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE
GSW 5200: FEMINIST, GENDER, & QUEER THEORY
TEACHING @ EMU
Undergraduate courses taught at Eastern Michigan University in the Communication, Media, and Theatre Arts Department.