cultural studies – Faculty

Cristina Morales Segura

Cristina Morales Segura — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 09:05:51 +0000

Cristina Morales Segura has a Law Degree by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Masters in Company Law by the IE Business School in Madrid. She got her PhD in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York in 2019. Her professional career has been both in Corporate Law in Spain, and more recently as a professor of Spanish Languages and Cultures in the United States. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer in �ֲ��ý College, and she is also teaching an interdisciplinary seminar (Themes of Justice in Spanish Literature and Film) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

Cristina has published 13 articles and book chapters on the interactions between Law and Literature. Her PhD Dissertation is a study that analyzes the historical, political and legal contexts of Mateo Alemán’s 1593 report on the working conditions in the mercury mines of Almadén (Spain) and his picaresque novel El Guzmán de Alfarache. This interdisciplinary study has been recently published as a book in Spain:�� Galeotes de Mercurio (2020). His current research keeps dealing with the many aspects of the relationship of Law and Literature and transatlantic relationships between America and Spain.

Ian Khara Ellasante

iellasan — Sat, 20 Jul 2019 16:00:50 +0000

Ian-Khara Ellasante (they/them) is an Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies. They are a cultural studies theorist whose current research engages the peoplehoood matrix–a core theoretical construct developed by Indigenous scholars–to examine the persistence of Indigenous and Black cultural identities within the oppressive milieu of settler colonialism and its associated and interlocking regimes: patriarchy, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. In this context, Professor Ellasante examines the history and reclamation of Indigenous extra-binary gender systems and Two-Spirit traditions, Black and Indigenous feminisms, and the dynamic resistance inherent in Black and Indigenous trans and queer cultures. As a community-based participatory researcher, they have worked alongside and on behalf of LGBTQ+ and Two-Spirit youth communities for over a decade to increase access to stable housing and affirming learning environments.

Professor Ellasante is also a poet. In their ongoing “Diana” series, Diana (i.e., one of many names for a goddess of the moon, of womanhood, of the hunt) serves as an ambiguous proxy, representing both the narrator’s cherished womanhood and their changing relationship to their womanhood as a trans/nonbinary person. In these poems, Diana also represents a woman who, bearing witness to these social and physical transitions, is changing in her relationship to the narrator. These poems integrate creative production with an intervention in the field of transgender studies by expanding notions of what trans* is and what trans* can do; what gender and identity can be, in ways that are not just possible, but that are actual.

Pronouns: they/them

Website: iankharaellasante.com

Courses

FYS 523: Poetry and Resistance Beyond the Gender Binary
AF/GS 201: Race, Ethnicity, and Feminist Thought
GSS 205: Queer Indigenous Studies
GSS 206: Gender Traditions and Transformations in the Americas
GSS 208: Transgender Studies
GSSS15: Queer and Trans Reproductive Justice
INDS 250: Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry
GSS 312: Transgender Narratives
GSS 313: Gender in American Indian Literature

Selected Publications

2022: When language fails and I exist. Pipe Wrench Magazine 7.
2021: Radical sovereignty, rhetorical borders, and the everyday decolonial praxis of Indigenous peoplehood and Two-Spirit Reclamation. ��Journal of Ethnic and Racial Studies 44. Published Open Access, available .
2020: Dear Trans Studies, Can you do love?��Transgender Studies Quarterly 7(3), 421-426.
2017: Pathways into and out of homelessness for LGBTQ2S youth. In A. Abramovich & J. Shelton (Eds.) Where Am I Going to Go? Intersectional Approaches to Ending LGBTQ2S Youth Homelessness in Canada & the U.S. (49-61). Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. (with Wheeler, C. & Price, C.)
2016: iTEAM: Outcomes of an affirming system of care serving LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. Journal of Contemporary Social Services Families in Society 97(3), 181-190. (with Powell, C., Korchmaros, J.D., Haverly, K., & Stevens, S.)

Selected Poetry Publications

“pale stones: a triptych,” in Writing the Land: Maine from NatureCulture, September 2022.
“turn to sugar Diana” and “on forgetting Diana when i cannot see the moon,” in Nat. Brut Literary Magazine, Fall 2021.
“let me tell you: Diana” and “are you kidding me Diana,” in We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics from Nightboat Books, November 2020.��Lambda Literary Awards Finalist
“grandfather: a dialect of water,” New Millennium Writings, July 2020. Winner of the 49th New Millennium Award for Poetry
“Diana: impending,” The Feminist Wire, February 2016
“a dialect of water,” “earth, water, and what is built,” and “pale grandfathers,” Hinchas de Poesia��12, April 2014
“Three Poems by Ian Ellasante,” The Feminist Wire, June 2013
“hinge: tongue | poems and poetics,” The Volta: Evening Will Come, December 2012

Selected Invited Talks and Presentations

“Toward the Empty Center: Journeys of Cultural Liminality and Elusive Authenticity,” Colby College, Boundaries and Margins Lecture Series, November 2020
“Authentic and Affirming Support for LGBTQ+ Students of Color,” Moberly Area Community College Workshop, October 2020
“Love and liberation,” Keynote Address, LGBTQ+ Rainbow Graduation, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, May 2019
“Intersectionality: Identity and advocacy at the crossroads,” Keynote Addresss, Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, PA, November 2018
“Sovereignty and story: Shaping LGBTQ, Two Spirit, and African Native American identities,” Indigenous People’s Day Conference, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, October 2017
“Intentional space: Creating safe and affirming environments for LGBTQ young people,” National Conference on Ending Homelessness, Washington, DC, July 2017
“System-level innovations to more effectively address the youth homelessness crisis,” National Symposium on Solutions to End Youth Homelessness, New York, NY, June 2017
“Racial equity and homelessness” (with M. Dones), SPARC: Supporting Partnerships for Anti-Racist Communities, an initiative of Center for Social Innovation, March 2017
“The value of advocacy for LGBTQ youth of color,” Black Life Matters Conference, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, January 2015

Selected Conference Presentations

“Strengths-based collaboration with LGBTQ+ young people of color,” PFLAG National Convention, Kansas City, MO, October 2019
“Black and Indigenous peoplehood, solidarity, and queer persistence,” Association for Jotería Arts, Activism and Scholarship (AJAAS) Conference, Portland State University, Portland, OR, October 2019
“Settler-colonial biopolitics meets Indigenous peoplehood and persistence: Sexualities and genders,” Sexuality and Borders Symposium, New York University, New York, NY, April 2019
“Re-Storying and re-naming: Two Spirit healing and resistance in the enduring face of settler colonialism,” American Indian Studies Association Conference, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, February 2018
“In whose image: Trans and genderqueer writers on magic, spirituality, and (the bodies of) G—d” (with TC Tolbert, R. Aoki, CA Conrad, & J. Ladin), Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference, Los Angeles, CA, April 2016
“Transitional age LGBTQ young adults: Creating a system of care to support resilience and empowerment,” Annual Conference on Integrated Healthcare, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, March 2016
“All genders celebrated: Programming strategies to affirm and empower transgender and genderqueer youth,” Transgender Spectrum Conference, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO, November 2015

Stephanie M. Pridgeon

Stephanie Pridgeon — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:25:04 +0000

Stephanie Pridgeon (Ph.D., Emory University) specializes in 20^th– and 21^st-century Latin American film and literature; her research focuses on the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and politics as depicted in recent cultural productions. Her first book,�� , was published by University of Toronto Press. Click to listen to an interview with the New Books Network about Revolutionary Visions. In 2022, Revolutionary Visions was awarded Honorable Mention for the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Visual Culture Studies section book prize. Revolutionary Visions has been reviewed by: , , , and Raanan Rein,

Pridgeon’s second book, , was published in 2025 by University of Toronto Press. Absorption Narratives was the subject of a recent podcast interview with New Books Network. Click to listen.

Her third book, analyzing the role of visual imagery of the Mexican Revolution (photography and muralism) in 20th- and 21st-century Latin American literature, is under contract with University of Toronto Press.

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters:

“Aging as Rewriting: Liliana Heker’s��Noticias sobre el iceberg (2024)” Forthcoming in Hispanic Review.

“Donde todo ocurre simultáneamente: imaginería muralista en Paula de Isabel Allende.” . Eds. Inela Selimović and Marta Pérez-Carbonell. Iberoamericana/Vervuert, 2026. 53-74.

“Writing Settler Relations: Jewish Literary Engagement With Indigenous Themes in Argentina and Canada.” (Co-authored with David Koffman). Eds. David S. Koffman and David M.K. Sheinin. Brill, 2024. pp. 177-192.

“Encuentros desafectados en Los perros de Marcela Said. Eds. Inela Selimović and Jorge González del Pozo. Iberoamericana, 2023. pp. 189-210.

“Jewish Guatemalan Fiction in a Global Context.”��. Eds. Gloria Chacón and Mónica Albizúrez. MLA Options for Teaching. 2022

“.” MELUS: Multiethnic Literatures of the United States. 2022

“”��Latin American Jewish Studies 1.1 (2022): 35-48.

“”��Armed Jews in the Americas. Eds. Raanan Rein and David Sheinin. Brill. 2021. pp. 222-46.

“”��Studies in Documentary Film�� 16.1 (2022): 68-82.

“.” Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies��29.2 (2020): 291-309.

“‘” (Co-authored with Katherine Ostrom, Emory University) Bulletin of Contemporary Hispanic Studies��2.1 (2020): 69-84.

“” Latin American Perspectives��46.3 (May 2019)

“” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos 42.1 (2017): 99-121.

“” Hispanic Studies Review 2.2 (2017): 208-233.

“�Ę” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 51.1 (2017): 101-125. DOI: 10.1353/rvs.2017.0005

“.” alter/nativas: latin american cultural studies journal 6 (Spring 2016).

“”��Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 25.1 (2016): 83-103 DOI: 10.1080/13569325.2015.1091298

Public scholarship
“” The Forward Opinion. 6 June 2024.

Book Reviews, Review Essays, Encyclopedia Entries

The Poetry-Film Nexus in Latin America: Exploring Intermediality on Screen and Page. Eds. Ben Bollig and David M.J. Wood. Hispanic Research Journal (Forthcoming)

“” Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies. 2023

Caribbean Jewish Crossings: Literary History and Creative Practice. Eds. Sarah Phillips Casteel and Heidi Kaufman. Latin American Jewish Studies 1.2 (Fall 2022)

. Mirna Vohnsen. Rev. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 54.3, 881-82.

. Ed. Marcela Crespo Buiturón. Rev. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos��54.2, 616-18

. Liz Harvey-Kattou. Rev. Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Vol. 97

��Chasqui��48.2 (2019), R15-R24. (Review Essay)

“.”��Latin American Research Review��53.3 (2018): 627-631. (Review essay)

. Antonio Gómez. Rev. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. 51.1 (2017) 199-201. DOI: 10.1353/rvs.2017.0014

“” Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Ed. Henri Gooren, Springer (2017)
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_269-1

Myron M. Beasley

mbeasley — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:47:34 +0000

Myron Beasley, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of American Studies, he also serves on the committee of Gender and Sexuality Studies at �ֲ��ý College. His ethnographic research includes exploring the intersection of cultural politics, material culture and social change. He has been awarded fellowships and grants by the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and most recently the Ruth Landes Award from the Reed Foundation. His ethnographic writing about Africana Cultural Politics, Contemporary Art, Material Culture and cultural engagement has appeared in many academic journals including Text and Performance Quarterly, Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, The Journal of Poverty, Museum & Social Issues, The Journal of Curatorial Studies, Food and Foodways, and Performance Research. His food film/installation ritual/feast (of his ethnography is Brazil) has appeared in UMMI and Paris film festivals. His recent curatorial projects include The Ghetto Biennale (Haiti), CAAR Paris 7 (France), and Dak’art (Senegal).

Recent research projects:

Beasley, M. (2022 in press)��Loving Repeating: Performance, Intimacy and Melancholia in the works of Dutes Miller and Stan Shellabarger. Catalogue. Hyde Park Art Center: Chicago

Beasley, M. (2021)��.��The Record. Online art journal of Indigo Arts Alliance.

Beasley, M. (2021)��Food is Food!: Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor and Vibration Cooking.�� Book Club of California Quarterly.

Beasley, M. (2019)��Auspicious Behavior: The work of Chakaia Booker. Catalogue. Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park & Museum.

Beasley, M. (2019) Memorializing Malaga. In��. Catalogue. University of Southern Maine.

Beasley, M. (2019)��, Special Issue��Liminalities: The Journal of Performance Studies.15:2.

Beasley, M. (2019) ED.��,��Special Issue��Liminalities: The Journal of Performance��  Studies.15:2.

Beasley, M. (2018)��The Chart.��Interview, 4:1, Fall 2018.

Beasley, M. (2018)�� Sound and Not Forgetting. In Soundbox: Between Digital Humanities and Sound Studies.��Duke U Press.��

Beasley, M. (2018)��Summer 2018.

. In Digital Sound Studies. Duke U Press:2018

, The Chart, Vol 4, No 1: Fall 2018.

, The Maine Trust Project, November 15, 2018.

, Portland Press Herald, July 22, 2018

Myron M. Beasley of �ֲ��ý College is awarded $7000.00 from the to support his research for his forthcoming book��Disturbers of the Peace.

Myron M. Beasley engages with other art critics and artists about the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial.��

��curated by Myron M. Beasley, opens at Able Baker Contemporary.

Beasley, M. (2017)��

Beasley, M. (2017)��.

Beasley, Myron (2016) Editor, 12:2.

Beasley, Myron (2016) , Liminalities: Journal of Performance Studies, 12:2

Myron M. Beasley curates at the University of Texas, Austin from 2/16-4/16.

(Digital Sound Project)

Beasley, M. (2014)

Beasley, M. (2014) .

Beasley, M. (2014) Editor.

Melinda A. Plastas

mplastas — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:25:10 +0000

Melinda Plastas is an Associate Professor in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her research interests include race and social movements, gender and militarization, health justice,�� tobacco capitalism, art and resistance. Plastas is the author of the book

At �ֲ��ý, Plastas teaches courses and advises theses for American Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and History. Plastas also currently heads the program in American Studies and previously chaired the program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Selected Publications

Review: Laura E. Helton, “Scattered and Fugitive Things: How Black Collectors Created Archives and Remade History.” Journal of American History, Volume 112, Issue 2, September 2025, Pages 374–376.

Review: Wiegand and Shirley A Wiegand, “The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South: Civil Rights and Local Activism.” Journal of American History, March, 2019, 105(4): 1085-86.

Review: Sarah L. Silkey, “Black Woman Reformer: Ida B. Wells, Lynching, and Transatlantic Activism.” Journal of American History, September 1, 2016, 103(2): 483-483.

“Contemplating Tobacco,” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Vol 12, No. 2 (2016), ISSN: 1557-2935��

Guest editor with Maria Rentetzi, “ Special Issue of Advances in Historical Studies, Vol 5, No 2, April 2016.��

Melinda Plastas and Eve Raimon, Special Issue: James Baldwin, African American Review, Volume 46, Number 4, Winter 2013, 687-699.

Melinda Plastas and Lisa Botshon,,” Feminist Teacher, Volume 20, No 1, 2009, 1-14.

“A Different Burden: Race and the Social Thought of Emily Greene Balch,” Peace and Change, October 2008, Volume 33, Issue 4, 469-506

Plastas has been active in numerous Maine organizations including and the .��

Expertise

S ocial movements, African American history, Cultural studies, Black Feminisms, critical race theory,�� Gender and Sexuality studies, health justice, commodities studies, Peace studies, transnationalism, tobacco capitalism, art and resistance.

Eden K. Osucha

Eden Osucha — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:25:08 +0000

Prof. Osucha’s areas of research expertise include Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century American Literature and Culture, African American Studies, Legal Studies, Critical Race Studies, Visual Culture, Queer Studies, and Feminist Theory. Her book manuscript, The Post-Racial Past: Race, Privacy and Identity Before the Obama Era, examines historical productions of the discourse commonly called “the post-racial”�� prior to the twenty-first century, at the intersections of law, literature, and media culture. The Post-Racial Past argues that contemporary post-racialism originates in the legal history of “privacy,” which Prof. Osucha traces beyond the formal recognition of a right to privacy in constitutional law to antebellum slave law that regarded the sovereignty of slave masters as a natural right�� rooted in the master-slave relation’s “private” nature. Through linked analyses of literary works and legal writing–including Supreme Court opinions, statutory laws, and legal scholarship–and visual texts from cinema and television to nineteenth-century commercial media, The Post-Racial Past argues that the legal right to privacy’s development via racialized technologies of publicity, surveillance, and sexuality made broader discourses of race, privacy, and identity increasingly enmeshed and conceptually interdependent. Exploring the acute racialization of a rights claim overtly linked, throughout its history, to gendered and sexuality-based identity claim, the book demonstrates how legal privacy anticipated, rehearsed, and consolidated post-racialism prior to its becoming, at the start of the Obama Era, a dominant ideology still pervasive within the political and cultural contradictions of American racism in the present.

Prof. Osucha has served on the faculty steering committees of the Programs in American Cultural Studies and African American Studies and has also served as a member of the Program Committee for Gender and Sexuality Studies and was a founding member of the college’s Arts Collaborative. Recent public humanities work includes serving as lead project scholar to develop the program which examines legacies of the Fourteenth Amendment for the nation’s literary history, for the Maine Humanities Council’s public libraries’ reading groups project, and co-curator of featuring short documentary and experimental films created as artistic responses to 9/11, which Prof. Osucha developed for Portland, Maine’s SPACE Gallery.

Recent publications:

Carol Batker, Eden Osucha, and Augusta Rohrbach, “Introduction: Critical Pedagogies for a Changing World.” American Literature 1 June 2017; 89 (2): 213–223.

Awards

Prof. Osucha’s awards and honors include the Mrs. Giles Whiting Fellowship for Teaching Excellence, administered by the �ֲ��ý College Office of the Dean of Faculty, the Nancy L. Buc Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University, and a Dissertation Fellowship from the Ford Foundation Diversity Fellowships Program, administered by the National Research Council of the National Academies.

Literary Arts Live

A published poet and creative writing teacher, Prof. Osucha is one of the curators of the English Department’s Literary Arts Live reading series, which brings poets, novelists, and creative non-fiction writers to campus to give public readings and serve as guest instructors in the department’s creative writing program. Visiting writers whose visits Professor Osucha has personally arranged include: Emily Barton,��C.A. Conrad, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Gabriel Gudding, James Hannaham, Courtney Eldridge, Samantha Hunt, Caroline Knox, Dorothea Lasky, Sarah Manguso, Ander Monson,��Tessa Joseph-Nicholas, Paul LaFarge, Dinaw��Mengestu, Brian Kim Stefans,��Christopher Vitiello, Colson Whitehead, Dara Wier, and Magdalena Zurawski.

Recent courses:

Eng 105. “Narrating 9/11 in Literature and Film”
Eng 142. “Early American Literature”
Eng143. “Nineteenth-Century American Literature”
Eng 241. “U.S. Fiction”
Eng 292. “Poetry Writing”
GSS 248. “Queer Studies”
ACEN 395b. “Privacy, Intimacy, and Identity: American Selfhood from the Puritan ‘Soul’ to Facebook”
ACEN 395c. “Frontier and Border in U.S. Literature and Culture: Chican@ and Native American��Literatures and Cultural Theory.”