Welcome to the Cultural Studies Department

Cultural Studies situates culture as a site of power struggles between competing systems of representations and the ways of life that they support. Our methods of study are critical: not only exposing the ideological dimension of culture but also exploring its radical political potential.

Our faculty members specialize in feminist and queer studies, critical race theory, film and media studies, museum studies, Latino/a studies, Africana studies, Asian Pacific Islander studies, and more. The CGU Cultural Studies Department is distinguished by offering both an MA and PhD in Cultural Studies. The department offers several concentrations, including Media Studies and Museum Studies, which are unique for their combination of a strong emphasis on cultural theory and hands-on practical experience. Students in the program can also choose to specialize in such transdisciplinary concentrations as American Studies, Early Modern Studies, or Hemispheric & Transnational Studies.

Instruction in Cultural Studies is carried on in seminars. Classes are small and each student’s program individually designed. Students have considerable input in the design of their courses of study, including choice of concentrations and minor fields.

Because many students enter the program from other disciplines, the department offers a variety of introductory courses in addition to advanced-level courses. Students are required to take courses in research methodologies appropriate to their interests in Cultural Studies: possibilities include ethnographic field research methods, visual research methods, oral history, archival studies, digital humanities, and film or literary theory and analysis.


Cultural Studies Department, Claremont Graduate University
Chair: David Luis-Brown
831 N. Dartmouth Avenue • Claremont, CA 91711 • 909-621-8612 • Fax 909-607-9587

David Luis-Brown profile image

David Luis-Brown

Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and English
Chair, Cultural Studies Department


The 2021 Bradshaw Conference:

Futurity and Future Publics – A Quarter Century of Cultural Studies at Claremont Graduate University

Conference Schedule

 

Programs

 

Core Faculty

Lucia Cantero profile image

Lucia Cantero

Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies

Email
lucia.cantero@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Consumer culture, social media, algorithms and data science, infrastructures and urban public space

Deshonay Dozier profile image

Deshonay Dozier

Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies

Email
deshonay.dozier@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Black studies, urban geography, policing and carceral studies, abolition studies, cultural studies, indigenous studies, racial capitalism.

Joshua Goode profile image

Joshua Goode

Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and History
Chair, Cultural Studies (Fall 2022)

Email
joshua.goode@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Modern Spain, 19th- and 20th-century Europe, Genocide and racial thought, Museums and commemoration, Memory

David Luis-Brown profile image

David Luis-Brown

Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and English
Chair, Cultural Studies Department

Email
david.luis-brown@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Hemispheric Americas studies, Latino/a/x studies, Black diaspora studies, American literature and culture

Darrell Moore profile image

Darrell Moore

Visiting Associate Professor of Cultural Studies
Philosophy Teachout Coordinator

Email
darrell.moore@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Aesthetics, Africana Intellectual Thought, Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy

Eve Oishi profile image

Eve Oishi

Associate Professor of Cultural Studies

Email
eve.oishi@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Cultural studies, Media studies, Feminist and queer theory, Asian American studies

Linda Perkins profile image

Linda Perkins

University Professor
Director, Applied Gender Studies

Email
linda.perkins@cgu.edu
Research Interests

Women and African-American higher education, history and contemporary issues on women in higher education, especially Black women, global gender issues.

Extended Faculty

Elizabeth Affuso

Pitzer College

Research Interests

Spectatorship, Fandom, Branding, Technology, Architecture, Moving image media art, Reality television


Aimee Bahng

Pomona College

Research Interests

Gender and women’s studies


Myriam Chancy

Scripps College

Research Interests

African diaspora with specialization in its literature


Jih-Fei Cheng

Scripps College

Research Interests

Feminist and queer of color approaches to media representations of public health issues


Ciara Ennis

Pitzer College

Research Interests

The appropriation of Wunderkammer tactics in contemporary curatorial practice


Paul Faulstich

Pitzer College

Research Interests

Cultural ecology, Ecological design, Ecology of expressive culture, Aboriginal Australias


Jennifer Friedlander

Pomona College

Research Interests

Cultural studies, Contemporary art controversies, Film theory, Psychoanalytic theory


Martha Gonzalez

Scripps College

Research Interests

Chicanx-Latinx studies


Jesse Lerner

Pitzer College

Research Interests

Media studies


Susan Phillips

Pitzer College

Research Interests

Community, gangs, and environment


Erin Runions

Pomona College

Research Interests

The intersections of biblical interpretation and political philosophies, with their multiple impacts on political subjectivity, gender, sexuality, U.S. national sovereignty, and biopolitics


David Seitz

Harvey Mudd College

Research Interests

Cultural geography

Current Graduate Students

Dissertations in Progress


Samine Joudat
PhD Candidate

Dissertation Title

The Specter of Representation: Computational Images and Algorithmic Capitalism

 

Graduate Students


Laura Black
PhD Student

Research Interests

Museum Architecture and Exhibition Design, Curatorial Theory, Aesthetics, Museological Ethics, Contemporary Art


Natalia Brazao-Cartas
PhD Student

Research Interests

Cultural Tourism, Heritage and Memory, the Sociology of Leisure, Latino/a/x Studies, Hemispheric Americas Studies, Comparative Public History


Gina Caliboso
PhD Student

Research Interests

Filipino-American history, Ethnic Studies, Intersectional Studies, Higher Education, Women’s Studies, Social Media Impact Studies


Gongju Cha
PhD Student

Research Interests

Critical Theory, Cinema and Media Studies, Asian American Studies, and Human Rights


Lorise Diamond
PhD Student

Research Interests

Black feminism, multi modal rhetoric, intercultural communication; Critical Race and Queer Theory; Transnational partnerships, Social evolution


Adrienne Domasin
PhD Student

Research Interests

Game Studies, ransmedia Storytelling, Television Studies, Narrative Theory, All Things Post-Apocalyptic, Curation of Popular Culture Artifacts


Mackenzie Eastman
MA Student

Research Interests

Digital media, new media preservation, curatorial theory, arts activism, STEAM, education, equity & accessibility in the arts


Hannah Fradkin
MA Student

Research Interests

Lesbian visibility in archives, queer lived experience, inclusive history, repatriation


Kimani Francois
PhD Student (Interfield with Religion)

Research Interests

Christian Ethics, Womanist Theology & Ethics, Social Movements, Black Feminist Theory, Civil and Human Rights, and Clergy Leadership


Joe Garcia
MA Student

Research Interests

Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Holistic Education, Ecological Literacy & Design


Anne Geismann-Alene
PhD Student (Concentration in Museum Studies)

Research Interests

Japanese art history; Japan Fulbright PhD Dissertation Research Grant Fellow 2023-2024; Contemporary site-specific art & architecture, biennials & triennials: their role in community revitalization and impact on artistic, curatorial, museological and visual practice


Oscar Guerrero Alvarado
MA Student

Research Interests

Equity and Inclusion in the Museum Field


Kiandra Jimenez
PhD Student

Research Interests

Africana Studies, Womanist/Black Feminist Theory, Black Women’s Rhetoric Tradition, Latinx and Indigenous Studies, Transnational Feminism


Denise Johnson
PhD Student

Research Interests

Race, psychoanalysis, and photo history


Abstract Kouadio
MA Student

Research Interests

My research implies multiple reads and is informed by an interest in how “things” come to shape our experiences and worldview. I reinterpret the connections we build our personal myths on through the objects we observe, words that we read and hold on to. In addition, I seek to explore social identity paradigms through lyrical content in contemporary Hip-Hop songs.


Gene Luzala
PhD Student

Research Interests

Queer and Transgender people of color, Oral History, Queer and BIPOC History, Feminist and Queer theory, Critical Race Theory, and gender identity development


Moina Maaz
PhD Student

Research Interests

Researching the role of Muslim women as mothers, educators, students, influential social agents, and ambassadors of Islam in North America.


Shante Morgan
PhD Student

Research Interests

Intersection of race/ gender/ communication


Lee Painter-Kim
MA Student

Research Interests

Mixed race theory, trans politics, arts organizing


Juan Carlos Parrilla
PhD Student

Research Interests

Latinx Theater, Latinx and African American literature, The Theory of the Duende, Afrofuturism, Poetics of Space, Ancient Mesoamerican culture, Archaeology, Geographic Information Systems


Joseph Allen Ruanto-Ramirez
PhD Student, Concentration in American Studies

Research Interests

Global Indigenous Studies, Asian American Studies, Indigenous diasporas, posthumanism, Igorot and Igorot American identities


Dennis Sandoval
PhD Student

Research Interests

Afro-Latinx/Latino


Annamae Sax
PhD Student

Research Interests

LGBTQIA+ studies, Disability and Mad Studies, feminism and intersectionality, anti-racism, abolition and anarchy, performance, and body politics


Kelsie Shawver
PhD Student

Research Interests

Researching the role of Muslim women as mothers, educators, students, influential social agents, and ambassadors of Islam in North America.


Daniel Talamantes
PhD Student

Research Interests

Environmental Anthropology, Animal-Human Relations, Environmental History, Queer Theory, Diaspora, Ethnic Studies, California


Eric Thomas
PhD Student

Research Interests

Latin American and Latinx studies; Indigenous Studies; colonization and comparative race in the Americas; immigration studies; hemispheric cultural studies.


Ayoub Touti
PhD Student

Research Interests

Race, Sexuality, Gender and Socioeconomic dynamics in the Arts specifically Cinema, Television, Literature and Theater


Arline Votruba
PhD Student

Research Interests

Reproductive justice, feminist movement, gender


Katie Ward
MA Student

Research Interests

Postcolonialism, disability studies, critical race theory, and prison abolition.


Alicia Wyneken
MA Student

Research Interests

Critical study of creative expressions, thoughts, practices, and products in relation to social, political, historical, rhetorical, and economic contexts.


Tiara Yahnian-Murta
PhD Student

Research Interests

Aesthetics, Conflict Studies, Contemporary Art, Continental Philosophy, Critical Historiography, Critical Narratology, Critical Security Studies, Critical Theory, Genocide Studies, History of Philosophy, Intellectual History, Memory Studies, Museum Studies, Philosophy of History