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.

Department Chair

Name	Contact
Miranda Joseph Professor	104 Scott Hall & 429 Ford Hall [email protected]

Core Faculty

Name	Contact	Specialties
Melanie Abeygunawardana Assistant Professor of American Studies	207 Scott Hall [email protected]	Contemporary Asian American and African American literature, critical race theory, affect studies, and queer theory
Aaron Alvarado Assistant Professor of American Studies	107 Scott Hall [email protected]	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 Professor of American Studies	206 Scott Hall 612-626-7266 [email protected]	Indigenous communities and cultures, migration, anthropology of work, Chicana/o studies, Latin America, transnationalism, gender studies, consumption
Brenda Child Professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies	209 Scott Hall 612-625-0895 [email protected]	American Indian history, multiculturalism, native culture
Kale B. Fajardo Director of Undergraduate Studies Associate Professor of American Studies	208 Scott Hall 612-626-8515 [email protected]	Philippine Studies, Filipino/a American Studies, Asian/Asian American Studies, American Studies, masculinity studies, gender studies, feminist studies, queer studies, migration/immigration/ transnationalism/diasporas/ globalization, maritime studies, Pacific World, port cities
David Karjanen Associate Professor of American Studies and Global Studies	211 Scott Hall 612-624-5581 [email protected]	Political economy, labor markets, migration, urbanization, inequality, employer-employee relations
Jennifer Pierce Professor of American Studies	204 Scott Hall 612-624-0852 [email protected]	Workplace and labor studies, gender, feminist theory, race relations, affirmative action, ethnography, social theory, sociology of emotions, research using personal narratives
Elliott Powell Director of Graduate Studies Associate Professor of American Studies	203 Scott Hall 612-626-8515 [email protected]	American popular music and culture, critical race theory and comparative ethnic studies, feminist and queer studies, African American and Asian American studies, music and politics, music and globalization, jazz, hip hop, sound studies

Visiting Faculty

Name	Contact	Specialties
Molly Ball Assistant Professor of American Studies	307 Scott Hall [email protected]	18th- and 19th-century transnational American literature, early African American literature, US imperialism, temporality studies

Affiliate Faculty

Name	Contact	Specialties
Aren Aizura Assistant Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	456 Ford Hall 612-626-9824 [email protected]	Queer theory, transnational studies, transnationality and immigration, political economy, labor
Susanna Blumenthal Professor of Law & History	612-626-5694 [email protected]
Bruce Braun Professor Geography	478 Social Science 612-625-6349 [email protected]	Eco-politics, political ecology, geopolitics of biosecurity, social and political theory, green urbanism, biopolitics and the city, Anthropocene in social, political and ecological thought
Timothy Andres Brennan Professor Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature	204 Nicholson Hall 612-626-1638 [email protected]	Continental literary and cultural theory, 19th and 20th-century comparative literature, postcolonial theory, music of the African diaspora, problems of world literature and globalization, intellectuals and the media
Rose M. Brewer Professor African American & African Studies	810 Social Sciences 612-624-9305 [email protected]	African American women's studies, Black family life, class, gender, intersection of economy, race, racism, sociology, women's studies, critical theory, social transformation
Madelaine Cahuas Assistant Professor	612-625-5578 [email protected]
David A.Y.O. Chang Professor History	1143 Heller Hall 612-624-9045 [email protected]	American Indian history, Native Hawaiian history, race and nationalism, United States, 19th- and 20th-century history, comparative indigenous history, United States colonialism
Susan L. Craddock Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	425 Ford Hall 612-624-6006 [email protected]	AIDS, disease, health, tuberculosis, public-private networks for neglected disease vaccine and drug production
Karen Mary Davalos Professor Chicano and Latino Studies	19 Scott Hall 612-624-8031	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 collectives.
Tracy Ann Deutsch Associate Professor History	1045 Heller Hall 612-624-8547 [email protected]	consumption and consumerism, women's and gender history, history of capitalism, food studies
Gail L. Dubrow Professor College of Design	32 McNeal Hall 612-624-7983 [email protected]	US urban history, US women’s history, Asian American history, public history, historic preservation
Erin L. Durban Associate Professor Anthropology & Critical Disability Studies	375 Hubert H. Humphrey Center [email protected]	queer and trans* studies, feminist studies, critical disability studies, transnational American studies, political anthropology, social movements, critical ecologies, Haiti/ Caribbean, US imperialism
Penny Edgell Professor Sociology	909 Social Sciences 612-624-9828 [email protected]	Culture, gender, religion
Nick Estes Assistant Professor American Indian Studies	[email protected]
Megan Finch Assistant Professor English Literature & Language	310B Pillsbury Hall [email protected]	20th- and 21st-century US and African-American Literature, black feminism, queer theory, dystopian fiction, afropessimism, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison
Michael Gallope Associate Professor Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature	210 Nicholson Hall [email protected]	Music and sound, continental philosophy and critical theory, peripheral modernisms, Black/African diaspora, popular culture
Vinay Gidwani Professor Geography	333 Social Sciences 612-625-1397 [email protected]	Post-socialism and justice, labor geographies, Marxism, identity politics and subaltern social movements, geographies of work, agroecological transformations, social theory, India
Teresa Gowan Associate Professor Sociology	1080 Social Sciences 612-626-1863 [email protected]	Urban sociology, ethnography, poverty and marginality, consumption and branded labor, cultural micro-foundations of alternative economies
Sumanth Gopinath Associate Professor Music	100 Ferguson Hall 612-624-1829 [email protected]	Music after WWII, avant-garde and experimental music, music and politics, musical hermeneutics, popular music, sound studies, music, and globalization
Ronald W. Greene Associate Professor Communication Studies	225 Ford Hall 612-624-2808 [email protected]	Political communication, debates, civic education, legal and popular perspectives on free speech, film exhibition, educational uses of film/movies, history of debates on population control
Douglas Hartmann Associate Professor Sociology	1135 Social Sciences 612-624-0835 [email protected]	American society, culture, ethnographic studies, field methods, mass media, Midnight Basketball outreach programs, popular culture, race, social change, social movements, social uses of recreational programming, sport culture, theory, poorly understood institution in the modern world
Katherine Hayes Professor Anthropology	386 HHH [email protected]	American Indian Studies
Karen Zouwen Ho Associate Professor Anthropology	395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center [email protected]	Cultural studies of finance capital; finance, globalization, and capitalism; ethnography; feminist studies; political economy; United States; comparative race and ethnicity
Miranda Joseph Professor Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies	429 Ford Hall 612-625-5047 [email protected]	feminism, marxism, postculturalist, queer theory, cultural studies methods, LGBT studies
Sally Kohlstedt Professor History of Science and Technology	204B Pillsbury Hall 612-624-9368 [email protected]	Science in American culture with an emphasis on contexts for scientific practice including museums, participation in science through education at every level and public engagement, institutional frameworks for science, women in the natural sciences
Scott Laderman Professor History - University of Minnesota - Duluth	265 A.B. Anderson Hall (Duluth Campus) 218-726-7207 [email protected]	Vietnam war and popular culture, US foreign policy, media studies
Josephine Lee Professor English Language and Literature	310D Lind Hall 612-625-9510 [email protected]	Dramatic literature, theater history, performance studies, Asian American studies
Richard Leppert Professor Emeritus Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature	226 Nicholson Hall 612-624-4354 [email protected]	Art history, critical theory, cultural studies, discourse theory, Frankfurt School, musicology, post-structuralist sociology of popular and high culture, Theodor W. Adorno
Alex Lubet Professor School of Music	100 Ferguson Hall 612-624-7840 [email protected]	Music composition; Jewish, American & Disability Studies; performance; popular culture; music, theatre, film
Jennifer Jane Marshall Assistant Professor Art History	372 Heller Hall 612-625-7120 [email protected]	Art and visual/material culture of the United States
Keith A. Mayes Associate Professor African American & African Studies	827 Social Sciences 612-624-5202 [email protected]	African-American history, 19th and 20th century; Kwanzaa and Black holidays; civil rights and Black Power Movement; Black History and educational policy; African American public history
Patrick J. McNamara Associate Professor History	1212 Heller Hall 612-624-6531 [email protected]	History and memory in Mexico, comparative revolutions, Latin America, peasantries
Ellen Messer-Davidow Professor English Language & Literature	22 Lind Hall 612-625-2071 [email protected]	Literary, cultural, and social theory; the “new knowledge studies“; modern/contemporary American social movements (Civil Rights, New Left, Feminist, and Conservative); certain areas of contemporary American public policy and law
Nathaniel Mills Associate Professor	310G Pillsbury Hall 612-625-8444 [email protected]	20th-century African American and US literature, the 1930s-1950s African American literary left, US culture and leftist political movements
Kevin Murphy Professor History	1047 Heller Hall 612-624-9021 [email protected]	History of sexuality, public history, comparative history of women and gender, US history, cultural and intellectual history, urban history
Richa Nagar Professor Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies	425 Ford Hall 612-624-6006 [email protected]	Politics of development; feminisms, praxis, and people's movements; intersectionality, translations, and people's theater; blending/interrupting genres and languages in antidisciplinary research
Jean O'Brien-Kehoe Professor History	1041 Heller Hall 612-626-5330 [email protected]	American Indian/indigenous studies, Native American representations, state and federal recognition, Indians of the northeast, ethnohistory, US colonial history
Yuichiro Onishi Associate Professor African American & African Studies	874 Social Sciences Building 612-625-0513 [email protected]	African American history, Asian American studies, African diaspora studies
Laurie J. Ouellette Associate Professor Communication Studies	254 Ford Hall 612-626-8517 [email protected]	Television studies, documentary and reality TV, media and citizenship, media and consumer culture, media historiography, feminist media and cultural studies
Jimmy C. Patiño Jr. Assistant Professor Chicano & Latino Studies	210 Scott Hall 612-624-6005 [email protected]	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 Associate Professor Writing Studies	21 Lind Hall 612-624-4209 [email protected]	Environmental literature, history, and ethics; ideas of nature, culture, and place; human dimensions of conservation biology
Steven Ruggles Professor History	50 Willey Hall 612-624-4081 [email protected]	US census research, US social history, historical demography, history of the family
Jani Scandura Associate Professor English Language & Literature	210D Lind Hall 612-625-9017 [email protected]	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 imperialism (especially Cuba)
Robert Silberman Associate Professor Art History	310 Heller Hall 612-624-1672 [email protected]	Film studies, history of photography, contemporary art
Katherine M. Solomonson Associate Professor Architecture & Landscape Architecture	151K Rapson Hall 612-624-5565 [email protected]	History of American and European architecture, ca. 1700–present; History of suburbia; American housing
Hoon Song Associate Professor Anthropology	395 Hubert H. Humphrey Center 612-624-8980 [email protected]	Ontology of power, the materiality of sovereignty; psychoanalysis; biopolitics; philosophical anthropology; animality; US/North Korea; early French anthropology
David Valentine Associate Professor Anthropology	364 Hubert H. Humphrey Center 612-626-8692 [email protected]	Cultural and linguistic anthropology, social justice movements, gender and sexuality, queer theory, the idea of the future, commercial space exploration
Barbara Welke Professor History	1039 Heller Hall 612-624-7017 [email protected]	American legal and constitutional history, US women's history, modern US history
Jessica Lopez Lyman Assistant Professor Chicano & Latino Studies	19 Scott Hall [email protected]	Midwest Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x Studies; gentrification & Latina/o/x urbanisms; performance and visual art; feminist, queer, and decolonial social movements
Teresa Swartz Associate Professor Director of Undergraduate Studies & Director of Asian American Studies Program	933 Social Sciences Building 612-626-1862 [email protected]	Families; Intergenerational Relations; Social Inequality; Asian American Studies; Gender; Welfare State; Children, Youth and Young Adulthood.
Llana Barber Associate Professor of History & Director of the Immigration History Research Center	1110 Heller Hall [email protected]	Immigration, Latine History & Latine History with a focus on the Caribbean diaspora.

Emeriti Faculty

Name	Contact	Specialties
Elaine Tyler May Professor Emerita	[email protected]	20th-century US history, women and family, women's social history, the cold war era, gender, sexuality, politics
Lary May Professor Emeritus	[email protected]	Film and popular culture, popular culture, post-WWII American history, Twentieth-century political and cultural history
Carol Miller Professor Emerita	[email protected]	American Indian women's narratives, American literature, intercultural studies, multicultural pedagogy
Riv-Ellen Prell Professor Emeritus	[email protected]	Anthropology of America, popular culture in the United States, gender and ethnicity in the United States, cultural studies of American Jews and Judaism