Areas of Specialization

American studies, post-colonial studies, feminism, 18th, 19th, and 20th C. U.S.literatures; film and television

Activities and Interest

My current research extends a line of inquiry begun in my 2017 monograph, Neocitizenship:  Political Culture after Democracy.  This book argues, in part, for the value of thinking transformations in political economy through the lens of popular culture.  It has become commonplace to suggest that our present (neoliberal) moment is marked by the erosion or collapse of modern political institutions,  Yet the political theory by which we apprehend this collapse emerges from precisely the modern historical synthesis that we is now, to all appearances, unraveling.  When we take the measure of the present by deploying analytical categories forged in a prior epoch, it becomes difficult to read our own moment as anything but a ruined or degraded version of the past.  Hence my turn in  Neocitizenship to forms of popular culture (SF, television, manifestos, gonzo journalism) less closely bound to the normative categories and imaginative horizons of modern political economy.  My new research extends my focus on the relays between political and popular culture.  In particular, I am interested in the narratives of zombie apocalypse (in film, television, print fiction, and comics) and alternative ways to imagine mass politics.