Faculty
American Studies at the University of Minnesota is internationally recognized as one of the oldest and most distinguished departments in the discipline. Our faculty are dedicated to academic development and are recognized for their distinctive strengths in teaching, scholarship, and community engagement. They are scholars committed to students and communities with whom they collaborate and are recognized for excellence in scholarly research and service, woven into their contributions on editorial boards, organizations, and throughout academia.
Core Faculty
Melanie Abeygunawardana
Specialties
Asian American literature; African American literature; Critical race theory; Comparative and relational approaches to race; Theories of affect, feeling, and emotion; Gender and Sexuality Studies; Queer theory; Critical and literary theory
Aaron Alvarado
Specialties
Critical University Studies; Politics of Knowledge; Feminist Epistemologies; Critical Race and Ethnic Studies; Agricultural History; Chicanx/Latinx Studies; Rural Queer Studies; Racial Capitalism; Critical Geography
Bianet Castellanos
Specialties
Indigenous communities; Migration; Anthropology of work; Chicana/o studies; Latin America; Transnationalism; Gender studies; tourism; settler colonialism
Brenda Child
Specialties
American Indian history; Public History and Museums; Ojibwe People of the Great Lakes; American Indian Women and Labor; The History of American Indian Education
Kale B. Fajardo
Specialties
Gender and sexuality studies; Queer theory; Queer of color critique; Masculinity studies; Transgender studies; Philippine studies; Filipinix studies; Asian American studies; American studies; Global studies; Globalization studies; Migration studies; Auto-ethnography; Santa Cruz School of Ethnography; Visual cultures; Visual anthropology; Environmental humanities
David Karjanen
Specialties
Medical Anthropology; Political Economy; Critical Theory; Critical Public Health; Critical Policy Studies; Migration; Medical/Health Humanities; Health Disparities/Social Epidemiology; Racial Captialism/Critical Ethnic Studies
Elliott Powell
Specialties
American popular music and culture; Comparative and relational race studies; Feminist and queer studies; Afro-Asian studies; Black cultural studies; Afro-diasporic popular music; Inter-/cross-cultural music making; Sound studies
Visiting Faculty
Molly Ball
Specialties
Transnational American Literature; 19th-Century Anglophone Literature; Early African American Literature; Temporality Studies
Fellows
Aaron Alvarado
Specialties
Critical University Studies; Politics of Knowledge; Feminist Epistemologies; Critical Race and Ethnic Studies; Agricultural History; Chicanx/Latinx Studies; Rural Queer Studies; Racial Capitalism; Critical Geography
Affiliate Faculty
Aren Aizura
Specialties
Queer theory and queer studies; Transgender studies; South East Asian studies; Labor and political economy; Transnationality and globalization; Science and medicine
Llana Barber
Specialties
Immigration; Latine history; Black migrations; Caribbean diaspora; 20th-century United States; Urban history
Adam Bledsoe
Specialties
Black geographies; African diaspora; Political geography
Bruce Braun
Specialties
Ecopolitics; Political ecology; Infrastructure studies; Philosophy & Geography; Green Urbanism; Anthropocene in social, political and ecological thought
Timothy Brennan
Specialties
Philosophy; Intellectuals and the media; Studies of Imperialism and Imperial Culture; Music of the African diaspora; World Comparative Literature; Intellectual history; Cultural and political theory; The Marxist and phenomenological traditions; The avant-gardes; Theories of colonialism and imperialism; Problems of translation; Popular music
Rose Brewer
Specialties
Social transformation; Critical theory; African American women's studies; Black family life; Class; Gender; Intersection of economy; Race; Racism; Sociology; Women's studies
Madelaine Cahuas
Specialties
Urban geography, cities and social justice; Women of color feminisms, intersectionality, race, gender, class; Race, settler colonialism, decolonial and anti-colonial theory; Citizenship, identity and belonging; Latinx geographies, Latinx Studies; Feminist methodologies, qualitative methods; Community-engaged research, scholar-activism, testimonio
David Aiona Chang
Specialties
Indigenous History; Native Hawaiian History; Indigenous Studies; U.S. West; United States Colonialism; Race and Nationalism; United States, Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century History
Susan Craddock
Specialties
AIDS; disease; health; tuberculosis; public-private networks for neglected disease vaccine and drug production
Karen Mary Davalos
Specialties
Chicana/o art and culture; Latina/o spirituality; museum studies; midwestern Latino ethnography; oral history and the archive; feminist theory and editorial praxis; community-based learning and decolonial methods; arts organizations and artist collecti...
Arash Davari
Specialties
Modern and Contemporary Political Theory; Anti-Colonial, Anti-Imperial, and Postcolonial Political Theory; History and Theory; Politics and Culture of the Modern Middle East (emphasis on Iran); Revolution; Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
Tracey Deutsch
Specialties
Consumption and consumerism; Women's and gender history; History of capitalism; Food studies
Gail Dubrow
Specialties
Asian American History; Public History; Historic Preservation; U.S. Urban History; U.S. Women’s History
Erin L. Durban
Specialties
Anti-ableist ethnographic methods; Critical disability studies; Disability anthropology; Feminist studies; Queer anthropology; Trans* studies; Transnational American studies
Penny Edgell
Specialties
Culture; Sociology of Religion & Nonreligion, Focus on the United States; Gender & Family; Symbolic Boundaries & Inequality
Nick Estes
Specialties
Oceti Sakowin studies; American Indian history; Indigenous social movements; Environmental justice; Federal Indian law and policy; Indigenous oral history
Megan Finch
Specialties
20th- and 21st-century American Literature; 20th- and 21st-century African American Literature; Black Feminist Theory
Michael Gallope
Specialties
Music and Sound Studies; Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory; Cultural and Intellectual History; Political Economy; Academic Freedom
Vinay Gidwani
Specialties
Post-socialism and justice; Labor geographies; Marxism; Identity politics and subaltern social movements; Geographies of work; Agroecological transformations; Social theory; India
Sumanth Gopinath
Specialties
Sound studies; Popular music; Musical hermeneutics; Music and politics; Avant-garde and experimental musics; Music after WWII; Music and globalization
Ron Greene
Specialties
Political Communication; Debates; Civic Education; Philosophy of Communication; Rhetorical Theory; Argumentation Studies; Cultural Studies
Atilla Hallsby
Specialties
Rhetorical Theory and Criticism; Secrecy and Surveillance Studies; Critical Algorithm Studies; Critical Artificial Intelligence Studies
Douglas Hartmann
Specialties
Race, Ethnicity, and Racism; Sport Studies; American Society; Cultural Sociology; Public Engagement; Field Methods
Kat Hayes
Specialties
Historical archaeology; Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Studies; XR (extended reality) in heritage interpretation; Archaeological ethics and repatriation; Memory, forgetting, history, heritage
Maggie Hennefeld
Specialties
Film and Media Studies; Comedy, Humor, Laughter; Silent Cinema (Especially Early Cinema); Film Theory and Film History; Archival Film Curating; Feminism, Affect Theory, Gender Politics; Speculative Approaches to Critical Thought; Media Historiography and Its Relation to Social Justice; Critical Theory and Cultural Politics; Film and Popular Culture
Karen Ho
Specialties
Ethnography; Feminist studies; Political economy; United States; Cultural studies of finance capital; Finance, globalization, and capitalism; Comparative race and ethnicity
William Jones
Specialties
Civil Rights Movement; African Americans; 20th-century United States; Unions/Organized Labor
Miranda Joseph
Specialties
feminism; marxism; postculturalist; queer theory; cultural studies methods; LGBT studies
Rachmi Diyah Larasati
Specialties
Study of Archive, Empire and Aesthetics; Post Colonial Theories and Literature (s); Study of Culture; Performing Arts, Dance in Global Politics & Culture; Politics of Human Rights and Creative Arts; Study of the body, emodiment, memory; Study of transnational Politics, Alliances (Bandung Movement and Global South); Creative Projects in Post-Conflict/War Zones (Asia); Southeast Asia; Sound Studies and Urban Studies; Plantation, Land and Forest
Josephine Lee
Specialties
Asian American studies; Theater, drama, and performance studies
Jessica Lopez Lyman
Specialties
Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x performance, art, and organizing in the Midwest
Alex Lubet
Specialties
Music composition; Disability Studies, Bioethics, Jewish & American Studies; Performance; Popular culture; music, theatre, film
Rahsaan Mahadeo
Specialties
Black studies/study; radical thought and praxis; (ruling) episteme; time, temporality; (im)migration, citizenship, and deportation; Caribbeanity; urban sociology/ethnography
Jennifer Marshall
Specialties
Art and Visual/Material Culture of the United States
Patrick McNamara
Specialties
Comparative Revolutions; Cognitive History; History and Memory; Human Rights; El Salvador; Drug Violence in the Americas; Mexico
Nathaniel Mills
Specialties
20th-century US and African American Literature; Literature and Culture of the Great Depression; The Literary Left and Communism in the US; Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright
Kevin P. Murphy
Specialties
History of sexuality; Heritage studies and public history; Comparative history of women and gender; United States history; Cultural and intellectual history; Urban history
Richa Nagar
Specialties
Blending/ interrupting genres and languages in antidisciplinary research; Politics of development; Intersectionality, translations, and people's theater; Feminisms, praxis, and people's movements
Jean O'Brien
Specialties
Native American and Indigenous Studies; State and Federal Recogntion; Settler Colonial Studies; US Colonialism
Yuichiro Onishi
Specialties
Black radicalism and internationalism; African American intellectual history; Asian American studies; Transnational American studies
Laurie Ouellette
Specialties
Gender and Sexuality; Media Studies; Biopolitics and Governmentality; Television Studies; Lifestyle and Consumer Culture; Precarity, Labor and Class; Digital Media and Culture; Media Historiography
Jimmy Patiño Jr.
Specialties
Race/Class/Gender; Chicano/a and Latino/a History, Culture and Politics; Immigration and the U.S.-Mexico Border; Latino/a Civil Rights and the Chicano/a Movement; African American and Latino/a Relations
Daniel Philippon
Specialties
ideas of nature, culture, and place; environmental literature, history, and ethics; human dimensions of conservation biology; food studies and sustainability
Olivia Polk
Specialties
Black feminist thought; Black queer and trans studies; Black diasporic literature and poetics; Social ethics; LGBTQ studies; Lesbian feminisms; Cultural studies
Steven Ruggles
Specialties
U. S. census research; U. S. social history; Historical demography; History of the family
Ceema Samimi
Specialties
Youth power; abolition; critical race theory; education; youth-serving systems; school-to-prison pipeline; participatory mapping; restorative practices; transformative justice; critical disability theory; nonprofit industrial complex; mutual aid
Jani Scandura
Specialties
cultural studies and critical theory, esp. theories of modernity, materiality, subjectivity; 20th century North American literatures, film, visual and mass culture; European, American and (recently) Japanese modernisms; theories of space and place; stuff--theories of matter, objects, things, refuse, trash; sound and acoustic culture, memory; history of science, medicine and its intersections with philosophy; writing in cultures impacted by US imperialisms (especially Cuba)
Robert Silberman
Specialties
Film studies; History of Photography; Contemporary Art
Kari Smalkoski
Specialties
Critical refugee studies; Gender, race, and sports; Critical youth studies; Masculinities; Education and political economy
Katherine Solomonson
Specialties
History of American and European architecture; ca. 1700–present; History of suburbia; American housing
Hoon Song
Specialties
Early French Anthropology; Philosophical anthropology; Psychoanalysis; US/North Korea; Animality; Biopolitics; Ontology of power, materiality of sovereignty
Gabriela Spears-Rico
Specialties
Cultural Anthropology; Performance Studies; Gendered violence; Heritage tourism; Mestizaje; Decolonial feminism; Ethnography; Chicanx indigeniety; Latinx spirituality
Iyekiyapiwin Darlene St. Clair
Specialties
Dakota culture and history; American Indian arts and cultural expressions; American Indian education; Minnesota tribes and communities
Elizabeth Sumida Huaman
Specialties
Indigenous Knowledge Systems; Indigenous environmental and educational rights; Indigenous and decolonial research design; Indigenous nature-mediated and place-based education; Tribal and Indigenous STEAM learning and research
Yalile Suriel
Specialties
Carceral State History and Higher Education History; Universities and Power; African American; Latinx; 20th Century United States
Teresa Swartz
Specialties
Youth, Young Adulthood, Older Adulthood; Well-being, social determinants of health; Social Support, Community Support; Families; Intergenerational Relations; Race and Ethnicity; Asian American Studies; Gender
David Valentine
Specialties
Cultural and linguistic anthropology; Social justice movements; The idea of the future; Gender and sexuality, queer theory; Commercial space exploration
Barbara Welke
Specialties
Modern U. S. History; American Social and Legal History; U. S. Women's History
Emeriti Faculty
Elaine May
Specialties
The Cold War era; gender, sexuality, politics; 20th-century United States history
Lary May
Specialties
Film and popular culture; popular culture; post-WWII American history; Twentieth-century political and cultural history
Carol Miller
Specialties
American Indian women's narratives; American literatures; intercultural studies; multicultural pedagogy
Jennifer L. Pierce
Specialties
Workplace and Labor Studies; Affirmative Action; Gender; Race; Ethnography; Social theory; Feminist theory; Sociology of emotions; Research using personal narratives
Riv-Ellen Prell
Specialties
Anthropology of America; popular culture in the United States; gender and ethnicity in the United States; cultural studies of American Jews and Judaism