Graduate Students

Education: 
M.A. 2011 - Bowling Green State University (American Culture Studies) 
B.A. 2008 - California State University, Long Beach (Women's Studies and Spanish; English Literature minor) 

Biography:
Originally from Riverside, California, Megan Adams first became interested in feminist academia and activism during her undergraduate work at CSU Long Beach. Recently, she received her M.A. in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University, where her thesis examined representations of women's masturbation in American film. She has taught courses in Intro to Women's Studies and Intro to Academic Writing. During her graduate studies, she has remained dedicated to feminist activism by leading an organization committed to developing personal and professional collegiality and mentorship among graduate women and faculty. Most recently, her research has focused on contemporary feminist debates about empowerment and agency in beauty culture. 

Areas of Interest:
Feminist rhetoric in political discourse; representations of women in media and popular culture; constructions of mixed-race identity; beauty culture, self-expression, and consumerism; feminist consciousness, agency, and the rhetoric of "choice".

Education:
BA 2006 – Wells College (Women’s Studies Minor: English)
MA 2008 - SUNY at Buffalo (American Studies)

Biography:
Jenna Basiliere holds a BA in Women's Studies from Wells College (2006) and an MA in American Studies from the State University of New York at Buffalo (2008). Current research interests include: the inclusion and exclusion of the transgender body in feminist and queer theory, the role of the feminist 'sex wars' in shaping current discussions around sex and sexuality, popular culture treatments of GLBT bodies, drag king culture, and cinematic biography as a narrative of transgender identity. In the past I have taught courses in introductory women's/gender studies, cultural formations of sexuality, and feminist theory.

Areas of Interest:
sex workers and labor, consumption culture, queer theory

Publications:

• Basiliere, Jenna (2009). "Political Is Personal: Scholarly Manifestations of the Feminist Sex Wars," Michigan Feminist Studies 22(1): 1-26.

Education: 
BA 2012 - College of Charleston (Biology and Women's and Gender Studies)

Biography: 
My research and academic interests revolve around feminist science studies and the implications of biology and biotechnology in fat studies, disability studies, and general feminist theory. Previous topics include anorexia nervosa's association with genetic predisposition and autism spectrum disorders; animal behavior, evolution, and gender; and the importance of a feminist voice in the hard sciences. Areas in which I am currently working are madness and mental illness, eating disorder treatments, and patient autonomy in medicalized settings.

Education:
BA 2007 - Univ Wisc Milwaukee (Women's Studies/Sociology)
MA 2009 - Univ Wisc Milwaukee (Sociology/Women's Studies)

Biography:
I focused my studies on identity as an intersectional project, chiefly investigating sexual, gender, and ethnic identities. This constant quest for self-discovery gave me my foci of border-crossing, hybrid, and intersectional identities.

Education:
BA 2008 - University of Southern California (Spanish, Gender Studies)
MA 2008 - Indiana University (Latin American and Caribbean Studies)

Biography:
A Los Angeles native, LaNita received her undergraduate degrees in Spanish and Gender studies from the University of Southern California in 2008. Working as a youth sex and health educator in L.A. and traveling through South America during her undergraduate career only cemented her passion for conducting transnational work focused on public health and gender/race disparities in healthcare. She worked on her M.A. in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from 2008-2010 at Indiana University focusing on the racialization of HIV/AIDS in US Latino communities and the social construction of infectious diseases. She is interested in producing practical and applicable scholarly work that looks at how medicine, gender, sexuality, and race intersect.

Areas of Interest:
public health, medicalization of gendered bodies, politics of HIV/AIDS, reproductive rights, contraceptive technologies, representations of STDs in visual media

Education:
BA 2007 - Indiana University (Gender Studies)

Biography:
Nick Clarkson is a PhD candidate in Gender Studies with a minor in Cultural Studies. His dissertation research investigates the regulation of transgender bodies through U.S. passport policies as a technique for enforcing U.S. norms of gendered, sexed, and raced embodiment at national borders. In addition to his research, Nick volunteers with Indiana Youth Group in Indianapolis, facilitating the Gender Variant Youth Support Group.

Areas of Interest:
Transgender theory, biopolitics, masculinities, citizenship, surveillance, HIV/AIDS

Courses Taught:

• G104: From Faeries to Lipstick Lesbians. Summer 2010.
• G101: Gender, Culture and Society. Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2011.

Publications:

• "Penis is Important for That." In Why Are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification and the Desire to Conform, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. Forthcoming, February 2012.
• "Transgender." World History Encyclopedia, edited by Alfred J. Andrea. ABC-CLIO, February 2011.
• "Trans Victims, Trans Zealots: A Critique of Dreger's History of the Bailey Controversy." Archives of Sexual Behavior (2008) 37: 441-443.

Education: 
BA 2009- Wells College (Women's Studies; minor in Sociology)
MA 2011- University of Cincinnati (Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)

Biography: 
Krystal Cleary holds a BA summa cum laude from Wells College in Women's Studies (2009) and a MA in from the University of Cincinnati in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2011). Her current research interests include feminist and critical disability studies; embodiment and technologies of the body; men and masculinities studies; motorcycle life and culture; and feminist popular culture criticism. While at the University of Cincinnati, she also co-organized a regional conference, Pop Praxis: Social Justics and the Media (2011), and instructed undergraduate courses in Introduction to Women's Studies, as well as Masculinities Studies.

Education:
Hollins University (Roanoke, VA)

• BA in English (creative writing concentration) and Women's Studies
• Masters in Liberal Studies (Interdisciplinary concentration)
• Certificate of Advanced Studies (in Gender and the Arts)

Biography:
Victoria Crump is originally from Roanoke, Virginia. She graduated magna cum laude with a BA in English (creative writing concentration) and Women's Studies from Hollins University. She also earned a Masters in Liberal Studies (Interdisciplinary concentration), and a Certificate of Advanced Studies (in Gender and the Arts) from her alma mater. In 2008, Victoria was a presenter at the University of South Dakota's Women's Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Conference: Women and Power. Her essay from this conference was published in the Summer 2009 edition of the South Dakota Review.

Areas of Interest:
In the broadest sense, her academic research and interests focus on the intersectionalities of gender, sex, and sexuality with race and class. Past research includes the marginalization of Female to Male Transsexuals of color, butch and femme aesthetics (and the political and feminist debates therein,) and lesbian health and its relationship to homophobia and physician-patient communication. Anything involving transgender studies, butch/femme, female masculinity, feminism(s), race, (subverting) gender roles, and merging modern popular culture with gender and women's studies immediately captures her attention.

Publications:
South Dakota Review: Summer 2008

Education:
MA 2009 - Indiana University (African American and African Diaspora Studies)
BA 2006 - Indiana State University (Studio Art: Metal and Furniture Design and African and African American Studies)

Biography:
Katie Dieter is pursuing a duel Ph.D. in Gender Studies and African American and African Diaspora Studies. She holds a MA in African American and African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington (2009) and a Bachelor's Degree in Studio Art (Metal and Furniture Design) and African and African American Studies from Indiana State University (2006). Katie's research interests include skin tone hierarchy among African American women and the intersectionality of these issues with other identity markers, such as sexuality and gender. She is also interested in violence against women of color, and more particularly, intra-racial violence against black lesbians and its relation to skin tone hierarchal issues. As a visual artist, her research tends to inform her artwork. Katie is highly invested in using her artwork as a means to produce knowledge and she tries to show her work whenever possible.

Areas of Interest:
Skin tone hierarchy, intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality, racial performativity and passing, violence against lesbians of color

Education:
BA 2005 - University of Iowa (Psychology and Women's Studies)
PhD 2012 – Indiana University (Gender Studies)

Biography: Laura Harrison researches the ways in which race, gender, reproduction, and reproductive technologies intersect in the contemporary United States.  Ms. Harrison was a member of the inaugural class of the Gender Studies PhD program at Indiana University in 2006.  She has taught several semesters of G101:  Gender, Culture, and Society and also a course that she developed independently, G104:  Extreme Bodies:  Identities in Transformation.  An essay by Ms. Harrison entitled “Brown Bodies, White Eggs:  Crossracial Gestational Surrogacy in the United States” has been accepted for publication in a forthcoming anthology, Mothering at the Twenty-First Century:  Identity, Policy, Experience and Agency.  Ms. Harrison is also committed to forging connections between academia and activism, and has volunteered as a medical counselor at Planned Parenthood of Indiana since 2008.

Areas of Interest:
Assisted reproductive technologies, particularly in vitro fertilization and gestational surrogacy; constructions of race in the United States; changing ideologies of pregnancy and the fetus including fetal personhood, maternal-fetal conflict, and visual bonding theories.

Courses

• G101 - Gender Culture & Society
  - Spring 2007, Fall 2007, Spring 2008, Fall 2008, Spring 2009
• G104:  Extreme Bodies: Identities in Transformation – Summer 2008

Publications

• “Susan B. Anthony” and “Elizabeth Cady Stanton.”  2008. Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, ed. Jodi O’Brien.  Sage Publications, Inc.
• “Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty.”  2009.  The American Beauty Industry Encyclopedia, ed. Julie A. Willett.Greenwood Press.  Publication forthcoming.
• “Brown Bodies, White Eggs:  Crossracial Gestational Surrogacy in the United States.” In Mothering at the Twenty-First Century:  Identity, Policy, Experience and Agency, ed. Andrea O’Reilly.  Columbia University Press.  Publication forthcoming.

Education:
BA 2006 - Gender Studies (Biology minor)

Biography:
Brandon Hill's research examines the intersection of science and the study of sex and gender. His work primarily utilizes a biological and psychological approach to examining how individuals perceive gender and sexual behavior. Brandon's research on sexual attitudes, sexuality, and transgender health has been presented both internationally and at US conferences. In the spring of 2008, he was awarded the International Friends of Kinsey Research Grant for his project titled; The Face of Gender: Sexual Dimorphism, Facial Features and Passability. Later that year he was invited to attend the University of Michigan International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Psychology Institute where he studied with Drs. Leonore Tiefer and Lih-Mei Liao. Currently, Brandon is an associate researcher at The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction working on a research project funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Areas of Interest:
Bio-psychological development of gender behavior and sexual orientation, etiology and contemporary conceptualizations of transgender/transsexuality, sexual dimorphism and basic cognitive processing of sex and gender, the semantics of sexual language, sexual attitudes and behaviors

Courses

• Sex, Gender, and the Brain (G205)-Summer 2009
• Gender, Culture, and Society (G101) Spring 2009 & Fall 2009

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• Hill, B.J., E. Amick, & Sanders, S.A. (in preparation). Who to use condoms with?: Variations in attitudes about condom use with different sexual partner types.
• Hill, B.J., E. Amick, & Sanders, S.A. (in review).  Assessing college-aged men and women’s attitudes about condoms: The development of the Brief Condom Attitudes Scale. Health Psychology.
• Hill, B.J., Rahman, Q., Bright, D.A., & Sanders, S.A. (in review). The semantics of sexual behavior and their implications for sexual health: US and UK gay men’s definitions of having “had sex.” AIDS Care.
• Sanders, S.A., Hill, B.J., Yarber, W.L., Graham, C.A., Crosby, R.A., & Milhausen, R.R. (in press).
  “Misclassification Bias: Diversity in conceptualizations about having “had sex.” Sexual Health.
• Janssen, E., McBride, K.R., Yarber, W.L., Hill, B.J., & Butler, S.M. (2008). Factors that influence arousal in men: A focus group study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 37, 252-265.

Book Chapters

• Hill, B.J. (2009). Transvestism: Origins and contemporary understandings. In T. Cooke ed.
  Sex and Society, Volume I. London: Brown Reference Group.
• Hill, B.J. (2009). Misandry. In T. Cooke ed. Sex and Society, Volume I. London: Brown
  Reference Group.
• Hill, B.J. (2009). Repression. In T. Cooke ed. Sex and Society, Volume I. London: Brown
  Reference Group.
• Hill, B.J. (2009). Modesty. In T. Cooke ed. Sex and Society, Volume I. London: Brown
  Reference Group.
• Hill, B.J. (2007). Sex Manuals: Old and Modern West. In Malti-Douglas ed. Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, Inc.
• Hill, B.J. & McBride, K.R. (2007). Transgender. In Malti-Douglas ed. Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, Inc.
• Hill, B.J. & McBride, K.R. (2007). Transsexual: male to female. In Malti-Douglas ed. Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference, Inc.

Education:
BA 2002 - National Taiwan University (Foreign Language and Literature)
MA 2005 - National Taiwan University (Foreign Language and Literature)
PhD 2011 – Indiana University (Gender Studies)

Biography: Yu-Ying Hu's research interests include Transnational Feminism, Cultural Globalization, Ethnography of Gender and Sexualities, Rhetoric on Gender and Sexuality in Media, Queer Politics and Theory, and Interdisciplinary Research Methods. She holds a BA and MA degree from National Taiwan University with a major in English Literature. Her MA thesis focused on queer theories and politics, female masculinity and butch-femme aesthetics. Her dissertation project focused on examining the way in which the conceptualization of gender and sexuality in Taiwanese society has been shaped and reshaped by Taiwan's political modernization and cultural globalization. She conducted her field work on a Taiwanese local lesbian community, which is distinguished by its members' gender roles and has prospered and caught great public attention in recent years, thus being a crucial site where ideologies concerning gender and sexuality are revealed. She investigated mass media as a major means that initiates and mediates global-local encounters in Taiwanese culture and society.

Areas of Interest:
lesbian identity and queer youth culture in contemporary Taiwan; structural contingencies of the butch/femme aesthetic; various modes of critical analysis, including queer theory, deconstruction and psychoanalytic theory

Education: 
BA 2007 – California State University (Women’s Studies)
MA 2011 – Oregon State University (Interdisciplinary Studies)

Education:
BA 1993 - Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi (Sociology)
MA 1995 - Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (Sociology)

Biography: Betsy Jose graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi in 1995 with a Masters degree in Sociology. As an international student hailing from India, she has extensive work experience in the NGO as well as the media sector. While in India, Betsy worked with organizations like TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Sexual Health Issues) and the YWCA (Young Women's Christian Association) of Delhi. She has also volunteered with Sangini (India) Trust. Betsy worked in the media sector in radio, TV and film in various capacities including radio show host, TV Producer, TV host, associate director, scriptwriter and voiceover artiste to mention a few. Her interests revolve around media and its repercussions on the shaping of perceptions about gender and sexuality. Betsy strongly believes in the power of film as a vehicle of creating discourses to counter hegemonic ideologies. In the course of pursuing her PhD along with a minor in Telecommunications, Betsy has already produced a couple of shorts on the Kinsey Institute here on campus. They are featured on Kinsey Institute's website. Betsy's research interests revolve around the changing landscape of alternative sexualities in non-western cultures and the impact of media mechanisms, particularly film, on this phenomenon.

Areas of Interest:
Comparative studies of sexuality and the changing face and space of intimacies in non-western cultures, film-making, media studies with reference to gender and sexuality, social activism.

A documentary film “Beyond Boundaries” produced and directed by third-year doctoral student Betsy Jose had its World Premiere at the IndyLGBT Film Festival in November 2009. The 26+ minutes film takes a close look at the lives of immigrants in USA with diverse sexualities. It deals with how various aspects of their identities intersect and interact in making their experiences distinct, as well as similar in many ways. This film, produced for broadcast on WTIU, has been made by a documentary class that Betsy pursued in Spring 2009.

Official Selection for “Beyond Boundaries” at:
Great Lakes International Film Festival 2010
Nominated for Best Gay/Lesbian Film

Kashish Mumbai International Queer Film Festival 2010 - Mumbai, India
Nominated for Best Documentary Short

Los Angeles Women's International Film Festival 2010 - Hollywood CA

Pride of the Ocean Cruise 2010 – NY to Bermuda

CineSlam Film Festival 2010 - Guilford, VT
Nominated for Best Short Film

Out Side Film Festival 2010 - Columbus, IN

Indy LGBT Film Festival 2009 - Indianapolis, IN
Nominated for Best Short Documentary

Conference Presentations:
2009    International Communication Association (ICA), Chicago, IL
Paper presented – “Cinema’s Scope: Gay and Lesbian Visibility in Contemporary Indian Cinema” at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies division in a session on Global Sexualities.

Awards:
2010    Summer Pre-Dissertation Travel Grant
Office of the Vice President of International Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington
           
2009    The Larry Gross Award for the Top Student Paper
International Communication Association (ICA) Conference, Chicago, IL

Filmography:
2009    “Beyond Boundaries”
            (This film is now part of the programming content of WTIU PBS network)

2008    “Inside the Kinsey Library” - http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/services/video.html
2008    “All About the Kinsey Institute”– http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/services/video.html

Education:
B.A. 2001 - University of Mumbai (English Literature)
M.A. 2007 - University at Albany (Women's Studies, Africa Studies)

Biography:
Hailing from Mumbai, India, Shahin Kachwala graduated in 2001 with a Bachelors Degree in English Literature from the University of Mumbai. She arrived in the US in 2004 to pursue a Masters in Women's Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. While at SUNY - Albany she also completed a second Masters in African Studies in 2007.

Shahin worked as a teaching adjunct for the Women's Studies Department, at the University at Albany, while also working full time as a researcher for the Center for Human Services Research, University at Albany.

Shahin's research interests straddle feminist and post-colonial theory as well as the history of women, sexuality and gender.

Areas of Interest:
gender and colonialism, neo-colonial processes, transnational feminisms, representations, social and cultural history, history of sexuality in Africa.

Education:
BA 2001 - Lambuth University (English; Minor(s): European Studies)
M.Ed 2005 - Vanderbilt University (Language, Literacy and Culture; Gender Studies minor)

Biography:
Bradley Lane researches contemporary feminist and queer visual cultures, as well as the cultural politics of American sexuality. At Indiana University, he regularly offers classes on the intersections of sexual politics and cultural production. This year, his courses include G205 (Photography, Film, and the Body); G205 (Sex Crimes and Punishment); and G205 (Feminist Sex Debates). He has essays forthcoming in Trans/Scripts: Queer Grads Reading Culture (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009) and Sexing the Look: Sexualized Imagery in Popular Visual Cultures (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2009) and has also served as a contributor to LGBTQ America Today. Previously, Bradley served as a Lecturer in Women's and Gender Studies at Vanderbilt University, where he taught courses on LGBT studies and queer theory. His dissertation project concerns the visual representation of sexual perversion, particularly through the figure of the sexual predator.

Areas of Interest:
sexuality and the body in contemporary visual culture; cultural politics of twentieth century sexuality; feminist and queer pedagogy; new media, popular culture, and the arts

Publications:

• Arousing Suspicions: The Visual Culture of Contemporary Anti-Pornography Feminism.” Forthcoming in Gentile, Kathy (Ed.), Sexing the Look: Sexualized Imagery in Popular Visual Cultures. Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010
• Suddenly Last Semester: What Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer Taught Me about the Queer Dis-ease.” Forthcoming in Battis, Jes (Ed.), Homophiles: Queer Grads Reading Culture, Rowman and Littlefield, 2010
• “Being Made Up: Semiotics, Pedagogy, and Identity in America’s Next Top Model.” Co-authored with Jessica Giles, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University.  Forthcoming in Columbus, Frank (Ed.), Social Changes. Nova Science Press, 2009

Education:
BA 2004 - Miami University (Interdisciplinary Studies, Women's Studies minor)
MA 2007 - San Diego State University (Women's Studies)

Biography:
Joselyn K. Leimbach is a doctoral candidate at Indiana University's Gender Studies program where she is currently examining the representation of lesbians of color in English language lesbian films. Her interests include feminist and queer theory, race relations within socio-political borders, and film studies. Previously she has acted as assistant editor of The Journal of Lesbian Studies and has contributed to The Encyclopedia of Race and Racism (2007)and the Encyclopedia of North American Sport (forth coming). She received her Master's Degree in Spring 2008 in Women's Studies from San Diego State University where she acted as a guest lecturer. While there Joselyn investigated the treatment of Black lesbians in American mainstream film and has presented her findings at the Pacific South West Women's Studies Association annual conference and the Conference for the National Women's Studies Association.

Areas of Interest:
representations of lesbian of color in lesbian films, race and representation

Education: 
BS 2010 – Vanderbilt University (Women & Gender Studies; Cognitive Studies)

Area of Interest:
I am interested in exploring the rhetoric surrounding sex trafficking and understanding the implications of this rhetoric in society.  I would also like to explore the ways in which sexual regulations contribute to a rise in sex trafficking. Although most of my research to date has centered on trafficking, I intend to expand this knowledge to include sex work, pornography, queer theory, embodiment, and performativity. 

Education: 
BA 2012 – St. Norbert College (English Individualized Major in Women’s and Gender Studies)

Biography: 
My work is situated at the intersection of Gender Studies and English. As a feminist literary critic, I analyze representations of gender and sexuality in film and popular culture as well as in canonical texts. Much of my past work has centered on Victorian protofeminist literature, but I plan to shift my focus to more contemporary texts, particularly those that address queer sexuality. My current projects include a critique of gender essentialism in the natural childbirth movement and research into the use of bisexual characters to promote individualism and the bootstrap myth in American literature.

Education: 
BA 2012 – University of Oklahoma (Women’s and Gender Studies; English Literary and Cultural Studies)

Biography: 
I see the direction for my future research to be in queer and transgender rhetoric with close attention to the relation of discourse to the body. Furthermore, I would like to investigate the distributions of power within the dimensions of gender and sexuality and explore how systems of power relate to queer and transgender embodiment. I intend to examine how discourses constitute transgender and queer identities and trace our bodies with meaning. Recently, I have also become interested in spatial distributions of power and symbolic capital and in the intricate ways that gender and sexuality interact with space.

Education:
BA 2008 Miami University (English/Creative Writing and Women's Studies)
MFA 2010 University of Notre Dame (Creative Writing/Poetry)

Biography:
Sami's research is on representations of (dis)ability in post-1970 black women's non-realist fiction. In addition to being a doctoral candidate in Gender Studies, Sami is a Cave Canem fellow and board member for the Society for Disability Studies. She works with Writing for a Change Foundation of Bloomington and The Rise/Middle Way House to provide creative writing classes for girls in the Bloomington community.

Areas of Interest:
Black feminism, Disability studies, Contemporary American literature, and Queer of color critique.

Academic publications:
“Self, Other, Other-Self: Going Beyond the Self/Other Binary in Contemporary Consciousness.” Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology. 2.1 (April 2011). Online.

 “What Makes Mr. Hyde So Scary?: Disability as a Result of Evil and Cause of Fear.” Disability Studies Quarterly. 28.4 (Fall 2008). Online.

Creative Publications (Poetry) in Gargoyle Magazine, Magnolia Journal, Disability Studies Quarterly, TORCH, The Battered Suitcase, Emprise Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly and elsewhere.

Education:
BA 2003 - University of Michigan (Art History and Women's Studies)
MA 2006 - Ohio State University (Women's Studies)

Areas of Interest:
literary and cultural representations of violence against women; autobiography; narratives of trauma; representation as a social and political act

Education:
BA 2001 - Princeton University (English Minor: Women's Studies)
MA 2005 - New York University (Gender Politics)

Areas of Interest:
rural queer theory, queer geographies, and lesbian-feminism; gender and sexuality in sports

Education: 
BA 2011 – Bucknell University (French and International Relations)

Biography:
Jocelyne completed her undergraduate work at Bucknell University where she received a B.A. magna cum laude in French and International Relations (2011). Her current research interests include intimate female friendship; kinship formations among women; and women-centered organizations. Specifically, her research focuses on the ways in which these themes complicate the idea of (im)proper feminist subjects; empowerment; agency; femininity and femme identity; and media representations of and by women.

Education: 
BA 2008 – Union College (Political Science)
MA 2012 – George Washington University (Middle East Studies)

Education:
BA 2005 - Eastern Oregon University (Anthropology and Sociology, Gender Studies minor)

Biography:
Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams is a member of the Miwok of the El Dorado Rancheria and is a single mother of twin six-year-old girls who joined the inaugural class of the nation's first Gender Studies Ph.D. program at Indiana University Bloomington in 2006 as the Indiana University Diversity Scholar.   In 2008, Cierra was admitted to the American Studies PhD program and is working toward a combined PhD in Gender Studies and American Studies.   She has recently been awarded IU's 2009-10 John H. Edwards fellow for "good citizenship, character, and especially attitude toward public service and the likelihood of future usefulness to society, scholastic ability, intellectual capacity."

Ms. Thomas-Williams' courses taught include G104 Representations of Black Women in Popular Culture and in Spring and Summer 2008 G101 Gender, Culture, and Society. Cierra has contributed to the academic journals Callaloo, 'emisferica, and to On Campus with Women, a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, in a special issue entitled Visibility and Invisibility: LGBTQ Students on Campus. Ms. Thomas-Williams is one of the 2007 Friends of the Kinsey Institute grant recipients for collaborative research on sexuality with Dr. Lessie Jo Frazier for their research on sexual citizenship in Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Areas of Interest:
representations of women of color in media; critical race and feminist theories; and transnational feminisms as they intersect with theories of the Black Diaspora.

Courses:

• G104 Representations of Black Women in Popular Culture
• G101 Gender, Culture, and Society

Book/Film Reviews:

• “Book Review: Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness,” an edited collection by Kamari Maxine Clarke and Deborah A. Thomas,” Callaloo, Vol. 32 No.2, 2009, p. 679-72.
• “Book Review: Mammy: a Century of Race, Gender, and Southern Memory,” by Kimberly Wallace-Sanders. emisferica, 5.2: Race and its Others, November 2008.
• “Film Review: Judith Butler, Philosophical Encounters of the Third Kind,” Journal of International Women’s Studies Vol. 10 #2, November 2008.

Articles:

• “Bridging Differences through Feminist Service Learning,” On Campus with Women: Visibility and Invisibility: LGBTQ Students on Campus, Spring 2005, Volume 34, Issue 3, co-authored with Tonia St. Germain, Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Gender Studies.

Education:
BA 2007 -Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Psychology)

Areas of Interest:
Internet fanfiction communities and sexuality, non-normative gender identity formation and performance

Education:
BA 2008 – Indiana University (Gender Studies, Sociology minor)

Biography:
Allison Vandenberg holds a Bachelors of Arts in Gender Studies from Indiana University. Her work focuses on the ways in which individual and group identities are shaped by sex, gender, and sexuality.

Areas of Interest:
The sedimentation of beauty practices as quotidian aspects of the bodily habitus, beauty culture as an expression of gender, respectability, entrepreneurship, and consumption; and social, cultural and historical perspectives on gendered aesthetics.

Education:
BA 2003 - Purdue University (English, Women's Studies and Religious Studies minor)
MA 2005 - Purdue University (American Studies, Women's Studies minor)

Biography:
Stacey Weida received her B.A. in English with a minor in Women's Studies and her M.A. in American Studies with a certificate in Women's Studies from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. She has taught Introductory Composition, Business Writing, Introduction to Women's Studies, and Gender, Culture, & Society, as well as Gender Studies special topics courses on technology and embodiment (G104: Rethinking the Gendered Body) ecofeminism and environmental justice (G104: Intersections of Gender and Nature), and masculinity and socioeconomic class (G205: Masculinities, Power & Money). Stacy has also recently had two encyclopedia entries accepted for publication in Jodi O'Brien's Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (Sage Press). Her research focuses primarily on gender in postwar America with an emphasis on feminist critical theory, conceptions of the gendered self, embodiment, socioeconomic class, feminist geography, and representations of "alternative" and postmodern masculinities.

Areas of Interest:
textual representations of the sexed and gendered body, especially the ways in which texts are used by institutions to formulate class-based appeals and to forge ideological solidarities among disfranchised groups; religious discourse; feminist theory and activism in a global and transnational context

Courses:

• G104 Representations of Black Women in Popular Culture
• G205 Masculinities, Power & Money

Education: 
BA 2005 – University of California--Berkeley (Integrative Biology) 
MA 2010 – Brandeis University (joint between Women’s and Gender Studies & Sociology)

Biography: 
Regina Wright holds a B.A. in Integrative Biology from University of California--Berkeley (2005) and a joint M.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies & Sociology from Brandeis University (2011). She wrote her Master’s thesis on the ways that cisgender terminology is used in the blogosphere. Current research interests include: single women; queer theory; asexuality; and transgender studies. While at Brandeis University, she was a teaching assistant for a lower division women’s and gender studies course entitled “Women and Gender in Culture and Society” and an upper division course cross-listed between sociology and women’s and gender studies entitled “Issues in Sexuality.” Currently, at Indiana University she is an Associate Instructor for G101: Gender, Culture, and Society.

Areas of Interest: 
single women, queer theory, asexuality and transgender studies