Graduate Student Research Interests

This page displays the research interests of a number of our graduate students. For a complete directory listing of graduate students and their email addresses, please see the graduate student listing.

 

 

Patricia (Patty) Baum

 

pbaum@email.unc.edu

 

B.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (History and Communication Studies) Current M.A . student. Interpersonal Communication.

 

Patty's primary research interests are in gender communication and family communication focusing on girl culture and constructions of femininity within the family.

 

Janel Beckham

 

janel.beckham@unc.edu

 

William R. Reynolds Fellow in Communication Studies: B.A., Virginia Tech (English); B.F.A., American Intercontinental University (Visual Communication); M.A., San Diego State University (Communication Studies).

 

Miss Beckham is broadly interested in critical, postmodern, postcolonial, and queer theoretical approaches to a range of objects of study, most notably performances of difference and outsider artistry.

Janel Beckham’s CV

 

 

Katy Bodey

 

kbodey@email.unc.edu

 

Katy's current research interests focus on discourses in girl culture. Her work centers around issues of voice and identity, examining how individuals' sense of self shapes and is shaped by the discourses in their worlds. Her research has explored discourses around femininity, violence, eating disorders, and identity more broadly.

 

Young Eun Chae

 

youngeun@email.unc.edu

 

B.A. Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea (Philosophy)
M.A. University of Chicago (Film History and Theory), University of Arizona (Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and Documentary Production)

 

Young Eun's main interests are Cinematic Representations of History, Trauma and Film, East Asian National Cinema, Political Implications of Representing Race, Gender, Sexuality, Ethnicity, and Nationality, Media Literacy, among others.

 

 

Steve Collins
sfcollin@email.unc.edu

 

M.A., University of California, Devis (Rhetoric and Communication)
B.S., Kansas State University (Speech Education)

 

Steve is interested in issues regarding rhetoric and memory, particularly in popular culture and civic public life.  Previously, his research in rhetoric has involved such diverse subjects as urban space, community representation, ethnomusicology, and popular media.  Steve plays guitar and is obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though he has never written about it.

Steve Collins' CV

 

 

Natalie Fixmer-Oraiz
fixmer-oraiz@unc.edu

 

Royster Fellow in Communication Studies
B.A., Indiana University; M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

Natalie's research and teaching interests center on rhetoric and media studies, feminist theory, and contemporary poltical culture. At present, she is exploring (new) reproductive technologies as they are figured within/through feminist and mainstream imaginaries.

 

 

Katie Harris
harriskl@email.unc.edu

 

Katie Harris is interested in gender and communication and focuses on feminist theory. She is exploring how gender, race, class and sexuality are at play in classical music, in representations of mental illness, and in discussions of aging and dying.

 

Rolien Hoyng
hoyng@email.ucn.edu

 

Rolien Hoyng's interests bind together Media Studies, Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory. More specifically, she focuses on issues regarding aesthetics, mediation, the Internet, technology and the body, European identity, cosmopolitanism and nationalism.

 

Srinath Jayaram
jayaram@email.unc.edu

 

Srinath is trying to figure out why most people (including him) are not horrified by a million peasants committing suicide in India in the span of less than a decade. He is mapping out the affective investments that produce this urban-rural frontier which has come to be definitive of attempts to articulate the contemporary conjuncture in India. Committed to a Cultural Studies approach to studying contemporary struggles within and exterior to "global capitalism" (at the cost of being capitalocentric), his interests span subaltern studies, postcolonial studies, Modernity/Coloniality, new agrarian studies, social movements, and (post-structuarlist) post-development studies.

 

Jennifer Mease

 

mease@email.unc.edu

 

Jennifer's interests lie in critical organizational communication and constructions of difference. Consequently, Jenn has interests in identity, whiteness, and rationalities for organizing. Her master's thesis focused on issues of white identity, and her dissertation will focus the Diversity Industry as it constructs notions of difference through organizations. In her spare time Jennifer plays soccer, invites people over for board games, and dances.

 

David Montgomerie

 

dmontgom@email.unc.edu

 

Thus far my research has centered on the theory and practice of critical approaches to understanding U.S. political and popular culture. This has most often taken the form of rhetorical criticism. On a practical level, I am interested in how we construct our public understanding of a democratic society. On a more theoretical level, I am interested in questions of human agency, including the material and discursive conditions that enable and constrain it.

 

Billie Murray

 

bjmurray@email.unc.edu

 

Billie Murray's research focuses on the rhetoric of social movements, especially as that relates to answering questions about the materiality of protest activity in the public sphere. Her most recent work focuses on the efficacy of protest as utilized by human rights organizations.

 

elizabeth nelson
ean@email.unc.edu

 

elizabeth's research and performance work focus on trauma, memory, and performance, especially as manifested by subversive body performances. Her artistic endeavors include interactive installations and performance art pieces. She is also devoted to critical performance pedagogy, and hopes to enable, encourage, and enact social justice through education and performance.

 

Julia Scatliff O'Grady

 

jsogrady@email.unc.edu

 

I write about time and our relationship with it, e.g. Daylight Saving Time, the twelve week leave of the Family Medical Leave Act and what it means to be awake at 2 AM. Currently, I am researching the 35W Bridge Collapse and how infrastructure is both communicated and understood. I am researching alternative organizing structures in preparation for a Leap Day Initiative in 2008.

 

Carolyn Richter
crichter@email.unc.edu

 

Carey is interested in identity formation and management and social movements.

 

 

Cindy Spurlock
cmspurlo@email.unc.edu

 

B.A., North Carolina State University; M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

Cindy's research and teaching interests focus on contemporary rhetorical theory, environmental advocacy, and public culture. To augment these interests, she has completed a doctoral minor in cultural anthropology and the UNC graduate certificate in cultural studies. Recent projects have explored local food politics and the rhetorical performances of place, tourism and nostalgia in rural North Carolina, and local community struggles against suburban sprawl. Cindy's dissertation research focuses on the historical and contemporary ways in which the U.S. National Park Service articulates citizenship, place, memory, and environment in its efforts to make conservation public. Cindy also teaches a popular undergraduate service-learning course on "communication, conservation, and community in theory and practice".

Cindy Spurlock's CV can be accessed here: http://www.environmentalblogging.org/wp-content/uploads/october_vita.pdf

 

 

David Terry
dterry@email.unc.edu

 

B.S. Northwestern University (Performance Studies), M.A. Louisiana State University (Communication Studies)

 

David's research currently focuses on performance and globalization.  His dissertation examines the intersections of tourism, immigration, religious pilgrimage, and everyday life at the Areopagos (Mars Hill) in Athens, Greece. He is the co-creator (with Michael Kraskin) of the award winning podcast "Catalogue of Ships" (www.catalogueofships.com

).  His essays have been published in Qualitative Inquiry, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Theatre Annual.

David Terry's CV

 

A. Freya Thimsen

 

thimsen@email.unc.edu

 

Freya works on generating knowledge and reflection about cultural theory, ethics, media, and political theory. Much of her work focuses on the body as a political symbol, epistemic medium, and avenue for ethical action in visual culture. Specific research topics have included anatomical museum display, the trope of the body politic, the rhetoric of cinematic violence, celebrity politicians, and confessions.

A. Freya Thimsen’s CV

 

 

Tessa Thraves

 

tes@unc.edu

 

Tes has been working largely on community food systems and diversity/equity in sustainable agriculture. Her dissertation work is on Identity and community stories and the daily practice of Hope.

Tessa Thraves’s CV

 

 

Leah Totten
ltotten@email.unc.edu

 

B.A. and M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 

Leah focuses on organizing for social change and the implications for community. Her research investigates problems of self-identity and the relationship to the other, the processes and mechanisms of collective agency, the rhetoric of dominant institutions and social change organizations, and the roles of dissent and conflict in community change.

Leah Totten’s CV

 

 

Sindhu Zagoren

 

zagoren@email.unc.edu

 

B.A., Antioch College; M.A., University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

 

Sindhu Zagoren's primary research interests are in the relations among media, access, and social movements. She has been serving on the board of the People's Channel, Chapel Hill's local non-profit public access television station, since 2005.

 

 

 

If you are a graduate student and would like to add or change information, please contact Vilma Berg at vberg@email.unc.edu. If you are a visitor to this site and you have question about any of its content, please email vberg@email.unc.edu or contact the appropriate graduate student.