About

Dr. Marina Levina is a nationally and internationally recognized scholar of critical/cultural studies, media studies, and critical rhetoric. Dr. Levina’s research is focused on critical refugee studies, anti-authoritarian activism and writing, Ukraine and Post-Soviet decolonial studies, and horror/monstrosity studies. She is an expert in critical studies of pandemics and disease and has published extensively on COVID-19. She has published extensively in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Television & New Media, Surveillance & Society, and Review of Communication. Dr. Levina is a recipient of numerous national awards, including National Communication Association Robert J. Kibler Memorial Award.

Dr. Levina is the editor of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies journal; the chair of Critical Cultural Studies Division of the National Communication Association, and a co-chair for the Rhetoric Society of America 2026 Conference. She serves on multiple editorial boards, including an advisory board for Surveillance & Society journal.

Dr. Levina was born and raised in Odesa, Ukraine. She came to the United States as a refugee from the then Soviet Union.

You can find more information about Dr. Levina at www.marinalevina.com 

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

Books

Happe, K. E., Johnson, J., & Levina, M. (Eds.). (2018). Biocitizenship: The Politics of Bodies, Governance, and Power. New York University Press. (Reviewed in New Genetics and Society; Journal of Disability and Religion)

Levina, M. (2015). Pandemics and the Media. Peter Lang Press. (Reviewed in The Communication Review)

Levina, M., & Bui, D. M. T. (Eds.). (2013). Monster culture in the 21st century: A reader. Bloomsbury Academic Press. (Reviewed in Choices; CINEJ: Cinema Journal; Information, Culture, and Society)

Levina, M., & Kien, G. (Eds.). (2010). Post-global network and everyday life. Peter Lang Press.

 

Special Journal Issues

Levina, M (Ed.). (2025). Refuge. Special issue of Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, 22(2).

Levina, M. (Ed.). (2022). Cultural Chronicles of COVID-19 [Two Part Special FORUM Issue(s)]. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 19(1) and 19(2).

Levina, M. & Silva, K. (Eds.). (2018). Cruelty in the Age of Trump [Special FORUM Issue] Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1).

Levina, M. & Hasinoff, A. (Eds.). (2017). The Silicon Valley Ethos: Tech Industry Products, Discourses, and Practices, Television & New Media, 18(6).

 

Articles:

Levina, M. (2025). Toward Critical Refugee Studies. Ediitorial for a special issue on Refuge, Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, 22(2).

Levina, M. (2025). Doing critical cultural studies in the age of totalitarian thought. Editorial for Communication and Critical Cultural Studies, 22(1).

Levina, M. (2022). Epidemiology as Methodology: COVID-19, Ukraine, and the Problem of Whiteness. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies,19(2).

Tabrizi, H. & Levina, M (2022). Conceptualizing “the end” of COVID-19: temporality and linear mobilization toward health, Review of Communication, 22(2)..

Christensen, K. & Levina, M. (2022). Saving White Women: Vulnerability and the Immobilized Body in Don’t Breathe (2016). Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, online first, June 26, 2022.

Levina, M. (2020). Queering Intimacy, Six Feet Apart. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 7(3), 195-200.

Dubrofsky, R. E., & Levina, M. (2020). The labor of consent: affect, agency and whiteness in the age of# metoo. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 37(5), 409-423.

Levina, M. (2018). Whiteness and the joys of cruelty. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1), 73-78.

Levina, M., & Silva, K. (2018). Cruel intentions: affect theory in the age of Trump. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1), 70-72.

Levina, M. (2017). Under Lenin’s watchful eye: Growing up in the former Soviet Union. Surveillance & Society, 15(3/4), 529-534.