Cultural Studies Adjunct: Brenda Weber
I think of myself as a person who analyzes the gendered politics of representation across a wide body of mostly discredited cultural texts, including non-canonical nineteenth-century transatlantic women's literature and contemporary media, specifically television. As it relates to these texts I have particular interest in how the materiality of the body is discursively constructed through written and mediated means, as well as how gender, sex, sexuality, race, and class work together to inform notions of the "normative" self. Interestingly, "celebrity" has become an important theme offering a framework for coherency across the many
modalities in which I work. I have two ongoing book projects, both of which engage with issues of gender within a cultural studies framework; these are: Figuring Fame: Women, Gender, and the Body in the Transatlantic Production of Literary Celebrity and Subject to Change: Becoming a Self on Makeover TV. I'm also working on a new book called: Mediating Masculinities: Conceptualizing "American" Masculinity in a Post-Millenial Mediascape.