Faculty
RIDGS Cluster Hire Faculty
| Name | Contact | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Karen Mary Davalos Chicano & Latino Studies American Studies Art History |
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 | |
| Gabriela Spears-Rico Assistant Professor American Indian Studies Chicano & Latino Studies American Studies Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
[email protected] | Cultural anthropology, performance studies, gendered violence, heritage tourism, mestizaje, decolonial feminism, ethnography, Chicanx indigeneity, Latinx spirituality |
Department Chairs
| Name | Contact | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Miranda Joseph American Studies |
[email protected] | Feminist, Marxist, poststructuralist, and queer theory; cultural studies methods; LGBT studies |
| Elizabeth Sumida Huaman American Indian Studies |
[email protected] | Culturally-based community development, ecological knowledge and place-based education, Indigenous research design, human rights education |
| Amelia María de la Luz Montes Chicano & Latino Studies |
Latina literature, LGBT literature, creative writing, and theories of identity. | |
| Aren Aizura Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies |
queer theory and queer studies; transgender studies; South East Asian studies; labor and political economy; science and medicine; transnationality and globalization | |
| Chotsani Elaine Dean African American & African Studies |
[email protected] | Black ceramic artistry |
| Kale Fajardo Asian American Studies |
[email protected] | 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, conceptual ethnographic practice, (UC) Santa Cruz School of Ethnography, visual cultures, photography, environmental humanities, human-fish relations. |
| Jessica Horvath Williams Critical Disability Studies |
[email protected] |
A thriving academic community around interdisciplinary, intersectional, and transnational approaches to studying disability |
Affiliate Faculty
Cawo Abdi
Specialties
Migration; Gender, Race, and Class; Family; Islam; Education, Development Studies; Human Rights; Globalization; Africa; Middle East
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
Llana Barber
Specialties
Immigration; Latine history; Black migrations; Caribbean diaspora; 20th-century United States; Urban history
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
Bianet Castellanos
Specialties
Indigenous communities; Migration; Anthropology of work; Chicana/o studies; Latin America; Transnationalism; Gender studies; tourism; settler colonialism
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
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
Yasmeen Chism
Specialties
Performance studies; 19th and 20th century archival studies; Black studies; Visual analysis; Critical geography; Feminisms
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...
Tracey Deutsch
Specialties
Consumption and consumerism; Women's and gender history; History of capitalism; Food studies
Erin L. Durban
Specialties
Anti-ableist ethnographic methods; Critical disability studies; Disability anthropology; Feminist studies; Queer anthropology; Trans* studies; Transnational American studies
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
Cindy García
Specialties
Race and Performance in the Americas; Choreographic Ethnography, Ethnography of Performance; Chicana/o and Latina/o Politics, Culture, and Performance; Dance and the Practices of Everyday Life
Tosin Gbogi
Specialties
African and African diaspora literatures; Poetry and poetics; Popular culture and hip-hop; Postcolonial and decolonial theories; Critical and cultural theory; Literary and pop cultural linguistics
Katharine Gerbner
Specialties
Atlantic World; Early American History; Religion; Comparative Early Modern History; History of Race; Global Christianity; Religion, Media, and Technology
Njeri Githire
Specialties
African Popular Cultures; African Cinema; Postcolonial Theory & Criticism; Gender Studies & Feminist Theory; Francophone Studies; Immigration, Migration & Transnational Networks in Africa/the Diaspora; African Diaspora Studies; African Literarature; Food, (Non)-Eating, and Related Topics in African Literature,
Michael Goldman
Specialties
Transnational, Political Economic and Urban Sociology; Expert Networks of Finance, Development, Knowledge, and Power
Atilla Hallsby
Specialties
Rhetorical Theory and Criticism; Secrecy and Surveillance Studies; Critical Algorithm Studies; Critical Artificial Intelligence Studies
Kat Hayes
Specialties
Historical archaeology; Settler Colonialism and Indigenous Studies; XR (extended reality) in heritage interpretation; Archaeological ethics and repatriation; Memory, forgetting, history, heritage
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
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
Douglas Kearney
Specialties
creative writing (poetry, nonfiction, libretto); black aesthetics, poetics, and literature; experimental writing; writing for performance; popular/cultural criticism; hip hop studies; poetics and prosody
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
Mai Na Lee
Specialties
Southeast Asia; Southeast Asian American/Hmong communities; Highland Southeast Asian Studies
Josephine Lee
Specialties
Asian American studies; Theater, drama, and performance studies
Rich Lee
Specialties
counseling psychology; ethnic minority mental health; individual differences; international adoption; prevention science; Asian American studies
Dwight K. Lewis, Jr.
Specialties
History of Early Modern Philosophy; Philosophy of Human Difference (e.g., race, gender, sexuality, power, decoloniality, etc.); Philosophy of Race/Africana Philosophy; Social Political Philosophy; Underrepresented Philosophers; Critical Theory
Enid Logan
Specialties
Race & Electoral Politics; Blackness in the U.S. and Latin America, White Liberalism & White Conservatism, Racial Rhetoric, Emotions & Identities; The Racialization of Indigeneity; Blacks and Social Class; Race & the Body
Jessica Lopez Lyman
Specialties
Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x performance, art, and organizing in the Midwest
Rahsaan Mahadeo
Specialties
Black studies/study; radical thought and praxis; (ruling) episteme; time, temporality; (im)migration, citizenship, and deportation; Caribbeanity; urban sociology/ethnography
Samantha Majhor
Specialties
Literature, 20th and 21st Century Native Great Lakes literature, Poetry, Indigenous Materialisms, Traditional Ecological Knowledges in Oral Tradition
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
Tade Okediji
Specialties
Social and behavioral sciences; Public policy and development; Africa and African diasporic studies
Omotola Okunlola
Specialties
African and Black feminisms; African literature and cinema; Genre fiction and popular culture; Nollywood studies; Postcolonial and decolonial theories
Yuichiro Onishi
Specialties
Black radicalism and internationalism; African American intellectual history; Asian American studies; Transnational American studies
Gwendolen Pare
Specialties
Latin American and Caribbean Literature, Hemispheric Feminisms, Performance Studies, Psychoanalysis, Critical Theory, Science and Technology Studies
Jennifer L. Pierce
Specialties
Workplace and Labor Studies; Affirmative Action; Gender; Race; Ethnography; Social theory; Feminist theory; Sociology of emotions; Research using personal narratives
Olivia Polk
Specialties
Black feminist thought; Black queer and trans studies; Black diasporic literature and poetics; Social ethics; LGBTQ studies; Lesbian feminisms; Cultural studies
Jennifer Row
Specialties
Queer theory; Disability Studies; Early Modern Dramatic Literature (French and English); Dance history and performance studies; Affect Theory; Histories and archives of sexuality and gender; Literary theory and history of rhetoric
Catharine (Cat) Saint-Croix
Specialties
Epistemology; Social Epistemology; Logic; Formal Models; Feminist Philosophy; Attention
Sima Shakhsari
Specialties
Transnational Feminist Theory and Practice; Transnational Queer Theory and Sexuality Studies; Diasporas; Necropolitics; Neoliberalism; Governmentality; Social Media; Refugee Studies; Middle East Studies; Political Anthropology; Cultural and Social Anthropology
Joe Soss
Specialties
welfare reform; public service; organization and governance of social policy; politics of inequality and poverty; role of race, class and gender in public affairs
Gabriela Spears-Rico
Specialties
Cultural Anthropology; Performance Studies; Gendered violence; Heritage tourism; Mestizaje; Decolonial feminism; Ethnography; Chicanx indigeniety; Latinx spirituality
Teresa Swartz
Specialties
Intergenerational Relations; Families; Race and Ethnicity; Asian American Studies; Well-being; Youth and Young Adulthood; Social Inequality
David Valentine
Specialties
Cultural and linguistic anthropology; Social justice movements; The idea of the future; Gender and sexuality, queer theory; Commercial space exploration
Bula Wayessa
Specialties
African Archaeology; Ethnoarchaeology; Ceramic analysis; Social Identity; Ontology; Agrarian change
Margaret Werry
Specialties
performance studies and performance theory; theatre historiography, 19C performance, theatre, and entertainment; museum studies; settler colonialism, neo-liberalization, nationalism, state-making and theories of race and ethnicity; tourism, heritage, and cultural policy; Pacific studies; critical pedagogy
