About

Dr Levina's research is based in critical/cultural studies, media studies, and critical rhetoric with the focus on intersectional theoretical frameworks. Dr. Levina has done extensive research in cultural meanings of disease, health, and pandemics, resulting in the book Pandemics and the Media (2015), and in cultural meanings of monstrosity and construction of difference and otherness, resulting in edited collection Monster Culture in the 21st Century (2013). She is particularly interested in how mediated cultural landscape constructs bodies, subjectivities and citizenships as a part of techno-scientific and medical discourses. Her research in that area includes an edited collection Biocitizenship: The Politics of Bodies, Governance, and Power (2018) and a special journal issue The Silicon Valley Ethos: Tech Industry Products, Discourses, and Practices. Dr. Levina's current research interests are focused on critical rhetoric of health and disease, cultural studies of monstrosity, critical whiteness studies, and affect theory. Her most recent publications include a special journal section Cruelty in the Age of Trump, and articles such as "Whiteness and the Joys of Cruelty," "The Labor of Consent: Affect, Agency, and Whiteness in the Age of #metoo," and "Queering Intimacy, Six-Feet Apart." She is currently working on a follow-up book on pandemic, provisionally titled How to Live Through a Pandemic: COVID-19 and Epidemiology of Whiteness.

Dr. Levina is the Book and Media Review Editor of the Women's Studies in Communication journal and a co-editor of Horror and Monstrosity Studies book series from the University Press of Mississippi.

Education

Ph.D. in Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006
M.A. in Communication, University of Pennsylvania, 2000
B.A./B.S. in Political Science and Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997

Experience

Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Communication and Film, University of Memphis, 2019-present
Associate Professor, Department of Communication and Film, University of Memphis, 2015-present
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Film, University of Memphis, 2010-2015
Lecturer, Media Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley, 2006-2010

Research Interests

Cultural Studies of Disease and Pandemics
Critical Rhetoric of Science/Technology/Medicine
Cultural Studies of Monstrosity
Critical Whiteness Studies
Affect Theory

Select Publications

Books

Biocitizenship: The Politics of Bodies, Governance, and Power (co-edited with Kelly Happe and Jenell Johnson) NYU Press, 2018.

Pandemics and the Media, in Global Crises and the Media series, Ed. Simon Cottle. Peter Lang Publications, 2014 (Reviewed in The Communication Review)

Monster Culture in the 21st Century: A Reader (first editor, co-edited with Diem-my Bui), Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2013. (Reviewed in Choices; CINEJ: Cinema Journal)

Everyday Life in Post-Global Network (first editor, co-edited with Grant Kien), Digital Formations series, Ed. Steve Jones. Peter Lang Publications, 2010. (Reviewed in Information, Culture, and Society; Convergence)

Special Journal Issues

"Cruelty in the Age of Trump," Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, FORUM section, 15(1), 2018 (first editor, co-edited with Kumi Silva)

"The Silicon Valley Ethos: Tech Industry Products, Discourses, and Practices," Television & New Media, 18(6), 2017 (first editor, co-edited with Amy Hassinoff)

Select Journal Articles

"The Labor of Consent: Affect, Agency, and Whiteness in the Age of #metoo" (with Rachel Dubrofsky) forthcoming in Critical Studies in Media Communication, 2020.

"Queering Intimacy, Six-Feet Apart," forthcoming in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2020.

"The Violence of Merit," in Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 9(1), 2020.

"Whiteness and the Joys of Cruelty," in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1), March 2018

"Under Lenin's watchful eye: Growing up in the former Soviet Union." Surveillance & Society 15(3/4), 2017.

"Disrupt or Die: Mobile Health and Disruptive Innovation as Body Politics," Television & New Media, 18(6), 2017.

"From Feminism without Bodies, to Bleeding Bodies in Virtual Spaces", Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, June 2014

"Healthymagination: Anticipating Health of our Future Selves" in Fibreculture Journal, 20, 2012

"Googling Your Genes: Personal Genomics and the Discourse of Citizen Bioscience in the Network Age" in Journal of Science Communication, 9(1), 2010

Select Book Chapters

"Technology", an entry in Feminist Media Histories special issue on Feminist Geneologies, Miranda Banks, Ralina Joseph, Shelley Stamp, and Michele White (Eds.), 2018.

"Non-human Biocitizens: Lab Animals and the Politics of Hope" in Biocitizenship: The Politics of Bodies, Governance, and Power, (NYU Press, 2018)

"Network", an entry in Keywords in Media Studies, Jonathan Gray and Laurie Ouellette (Eds.), NYU Press, Keywords Series, 2017.

"Our Data, Ourselves: Feminist Narratives of Empowerment in Health 2.0 Discourse" in Cyberfeminism 2.0 Radhika Gajjala and Yeon Ju Oh (Eds.), Peter Lang Publications, 2012.

"Cultural Narratives of Blood" in Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies, Robert Smith (Ed.), University of Ottawa Press, 2011.

Courses Offered

Current Trends in Critical/Cultural Studies
Monster Films
Gender and Film
Affect Theory and Politics
Surveillance and Society
Bodies and Technologies

Grants and Fellowships

University of Memphis College of Communication and Fine Arts Dean's Outstanding Research Award, 2018
University of Memphis Professional Development Grant, Spring 2017.
University of Edinburgh, Genomics Forum, Bright Ideas Visiting Fellow, October 2012.
University of Memphis Faculty Research Grant 2012.
University of Memphis College of Communication and Fine Arts New Faculty Research Grant 2011.

Current PhD Advisees

Hannah Tabrizi
Veronica Heatherly

Graduated PhD Advisees

Dr. Kyle Christensen
Dr. Scarlett Hester
Dr. Kalemba Kizito
Dr. Carolyn Block