Graduate Research Conference
M.A. in Cultural Studies (MACS) Graduate Research Conference
Saturday, May 20, 2023
11:30am – 5:00pm
University of Washington Bothell, WA (directions and campus map)
North Creek Event Center
Registration required. Free and open to the community.
11:30am, Gathering
Program to begin at 11:45 am
11:45am, Welcome and Land Acknowledgements
- Naomi Macalalad Bragin, Ph.D. | Cultural Studies Faculty & Instructor for BCULST 512
11:55am, Poetry Reading
- Savita Krishnamoorthy, MACS Alumni | “Gratitude”
12:00pm, Research Presentations
Moderator: Susan Harewood, Ph.D. | Cultural Studies Faculty
Panel 1: Tracing: An Exploration of Global Blackness across Mediums
- Özge Demirci-Richardson: Black Turk: An appropriated identity
- Flor Reyes: The Sound of Colorism: The new era of Reggaeton music and it’s erasure of blackness
- Chinazom Oleru: Me, Myself, and Us: Remixing the Narrative
1:00pm, BREAK
1:15pm, Research Presentations
Moderator: Lauren Berliner, Ph.D. | Cultural Studies Faculty
Panel 2: Challenging Inequity in Healthcare & Education
- Shannon Meyer: Interrupting Eugenics: Tracing the Trajectory of Disability Discourse in Genetic Counseling Post-Dobbs
- Beza Ayele: Recognizing the Intersection of ADHD, Blackness, and Education: Addressing Frustrations and Challenges through Targeted Support and Embracing Actuality in the Face of ‘Black Excellence
- Cynthia (Mumtaz) Marie Anderson: Birth Equity in Labor and Delivery for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)
2:15pm, Lunch
3:00pm, Video Research Presentation
- Sophia Nicholson Keener: Clawing at the Margins: Insisting on Culture When We are Told There is None
3:15pm, Research Presentations
Moderator: S. Charusheela, Ph.D. | Cultural Studies Faculty
Panel 3: Rewriting the Narrative: Stories of Healing, Diversity and Reconnection
- Hannah Mendro: The comfort in hurt: narratives and practices of care in Lord of the Rings fanfiction
- Darchelle Denise Burnett: Making the Switch to DEI: An Observational Guide for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Career Exploration
- Harlin Horrer: Dwelling Between Hope and Pain
4:15pm, Closing Toast
About Savita Krishnamoorthy
She is a founding member and co-organizer of Black Cinema Collective, a Washington-based group of multicultural artists+scholars who screen, interrogate, and celebrate works of African and Afro-diasporic filmmakers.
Her writing publications include The Times of India, Feminist Media Histories (University of California Press), Courageous Creativity, Black Embodiment Studio Journal, and the International Examiner, Seattle, where she is a regular contributor writing on books, arts, and culture.
Her latest publication is MAPPING HOME, a collaborative collection of poems with her 16-year-old son, Arjun. MAPPING HOME takes you on a series of journeys through memories, love and loss, joy in unexpected places, and what HOME means in all its complexities.
Presentation Abstracts
Beza Ayele: Recognizing the Intersection of ADHD, Blackness, and Education: Addressing Frustrations and Challenges through Targeted Support and Embracing Actuality in the Face of ‘Black Excellence
The harmful experiences of diagnosed and undiagnosed Black girls and women with ADHD in education demonstrate how systemic barriers, biases, and the pressure to conform to the ‘Black excellence’ ideology contribute to turmoil and challenges in academic settings. I analyzed the experiences of Black women and girls with ADHD, highlighting the need for targeted support systems and implementations to address their needs. Furthermore, the study sheds light on the fact that the rigid structures of academic settings can cause harm to a broad range of individuals, irrespective of their abilities. Through a qualitative archival study of the podcast “ADHD Babes: The Podcast,” run under “a community group for Black Women and Non-Binary people of African-Caribbean descent with ADHD,” I examine the frustration experienced by Black girls and women with ADHD and explore the kinds of support they feel could have aided them in their journey to better understand and advocate for their needs.ilities. Through a qualitative archival study of the podcast “ADHD Babes: The Podcast,” run under “a community group for Black Women and Non-Binary people of African-Caribbean descent with ADHD,” I examine the frustration experienced by Black girls and women with ADHD and explore the kinds of support they feel could have aided them in their journey to better understand and advocate for their needs.
Portfolio Advisor: S. Charusheela, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Natasha Merchant, Ph.D.
Cynthia (Mumtaz) Marie Anderson: Birth Equity in Labor and Delivery for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)
My Capstone paper looks critically at the inequities of birthing care in the United States during labor and delivery for People of Color. It presents examples of scientific and historical marginalization of BIPOC birthing bodies and outlines the need to focus on Culturally Congruent Care. I include narratives from nurses, birthing people of color, doulas, and midwives about their experiences offering and receiving care and how that care aligned (or did not align) with individuals’ cultural needs. My research draws on the concepts of Stand-Point Theory introduced to me by feminist philosopher, Sandra Harding which contends that “humans produce knowledge through power relations that construct and divide social groups into dominant and nondominant categories.” I look closely at the complicated history of hospital care in the United States in terms of birthing and delivery paying attention to the data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that states that the high mortality rate of people of color during labor and delivery is due to 1.) variations in the quality of healthcare, 2.) underlying chronic conditions, 3.) structural racism, and 4.) implicit bias.
Keywords: Maternal Healthcare, Equity, Birth and Delivery, Culture, Identity, Care, Activism, Impact, and Health Disparities, Race
Portfolio Advisor: Ron Krabill, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Lauren Berliner, Ph.D.
Darchelle Denise Burnett: Making the Switch to DEI: An Observational Guide for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Career Exploration
While implementing thoughts and observations from the Cultural Studies curriculum into my career search process, I found interest in the construction of job advertisements outlined for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(DEI) within various fields. These job advertisements often referred to the promotion of DEI in company and organization culture and present many similarities, however, the following research shows that they are not easily simplified into a centralized description. By qualitatively exploring DEI job advertisements on LinkedIn, a professional social network platform, I collected 19 job ads and analyzed their content to draw an observational guide for those wanting to explore and/or transition into DEI positions. With an interest in recruitment, human resources, communication, and other fields this research showcases common occurrences throughout each advertisement’s text and other contextual findings within DEI construction.
Portfolio Advisor: Ron Krabill, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Amoshaun Toft, Ph.D.
Flor Reyes: The Sound of Colorism: The new era of Reggaeton music and its erasure of Blackness
In this research project, I examine traces of race and colorism presented in the last 10 years of Reggaeton’s rise to global success. From the music’s inception in Panama then its popularization in Puerto Rico during the 1990’s, Reggaeton music has quickly become known as the staple of Latino music. Reggaeton was once known as underground, Dembow, or música Negra (Black music). “The music expressed an explicit politics of Blackness within a context of enduring racism and blanquerismo (whiteness)” (Marshall). The dancehall, reggae, and hip-hop inspired genre shift the narrative from Musica Negra to Reggaeton Latino in the early 2000s in order to expand to a wider audience with growing numbers of Spanish speakers in the United States. Through my research, I will be conducting a media analysis of two impactful Reggaeton artists/activists, Bad Bunny and Tego Calderon. I share traces of Reggaeton history from Tego Calderon, one of the pioneers/activists of the music to Bad Bunny, one of the most streamed artists in the world today. I respond to the erasure of Blackness in the genre’s rise to global success by comparing both artists’ versions of activism and the recent discourse of colorism and race between the two artists’ music success.
Portfolio Advisor: S. Charusheela, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Susan Harewood, Ph.D.
Hannah Mendro: The comfort in hurt: narratives and practices of care in Lord of the Rings fanfiction
In online fanfiction communities, where fans of popular texts gather to write their own stories about beloved fictional characters and worlds, one common subgenre of writing is known as hurt/comfort. Hurt/comfort fanfiction, as its name suggests, depicts a character being hurt, physically or emotionally, and then cared for by the characters around them. In these stories, fanfiction writers can explore their own subjectivity through the characters they write about, fill in the gaps of published narratives, and find community with others who share their interests. This practice can be subversive in the way that it shifts existing narratives of pain and care: centering the experiences of hurt and comfort, exploring the consequences of different forms of pain, and creating space for care in defiance of modern capitalist structures that devalue and de-prioritize it. However, these stories often reproduce existing hegemonic structures of race and gender. Through the lens of fanfiction about Legolas from Lord of the Rings, I argue that fanfiction writers use hurt/comfort as both a practice of self-care and a way of challenging narrative and societal discourses about the significance of pain and caretaking – but one which frequently falls short of challenging hierarchies of power.
Portfolio Advisor: Dan Berger, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Lauren Berliner, Ph.D.
Harlin Horrer: Dwelling Between Hope and Pain
Being biracial means living in this constant state of tension as you struggle to understand who you are and how to identify. This presentation shows the journey I’ve taken as I try to reconnect with my native heritage and the obstacles I’ve had to face as I learn about Navajo culture. Tension is a theme throughout my presentation and as a biracial individual it has been hard to understand what it means to be Native American. I will share the challenges, successes, and where I’m at now when answering my capstone question: “What does it look like when an urban native reconnects to their tribe, for the individual and community?” I realize there will always be tension between my white and Navajo heritage and that’s okay; Living between two worlds shapes me into who I am today, and throughout my life I will continue to find a peaceful balance between both cultures. I hope my capstone can be a piece that grounds me and can be a model for those going through a similar process.
Portfolio Advisor: Ron Krabill, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: S. Charusheela, Ph.D.
Özge Demirci-Richardson: Black Turk: An appropriated identity
This research aims to observe the black Turk phenomenon in Turkey. I examine global discourse and appropriation of blackness by focusing on the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s use of black Turk discourse. Erdogan utilizes the discourse of blackness for his populist, Islamist political projects. Calling himself “a proud black Turk” (mainly referring to his Muslim background), Erdogan uses blackness as a political tool to create a shared identity with his supporters while also creating further polarization between the black Turks and the “others”. I examine the effect of the black Turk phenomenon in modern day Turkey through analyzing political speeches and newspaper pieces. I argue that by using the discourse of blackness, Erdogan, 1) represents himself as a black Turk who has been oppressed, and therefore is a victim, 2) creates a narrative that he is the fighter for justice and the sole savior of the oppressed black Turks in Turkey. Erdogan deploys this discourse of fighting for the oppressed to give cover to his authoritarian agenda. This research contributes to our understanding of how the discourse of blackness circulates globally and is appropriated for political gains.
Keywords: black Turk, white Turk, global blackness, Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Portfolio Advisor: Dan Berger, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Maryam Griffin, Ph.D.
Shannon Meyer: Interrupting Eugenics: Tracing the Trajectory of Disability Discourse in Genetic Counseling Post-Dobbs
Understanding eugenic discourse within the genetic counseling profession, especially newly emerging discourse in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, is a necessary beginning to confronting and eliminating eugenic and ableist discourse in the genetic counseling practice. Critique of the genetic counseling profession stems from its origins in early 20th century eugenic science, as well as its ongoing participation in what has been described by some disability activists as a neo-eugenics movement supporting selective abortion based on disability. As gatekeepers of genetic testing & information, a genetic counselor’s direct impact on patients obtaining and interpreting prenatal test results, especially in the case of diagnosis of fetal disability or disease, can not be understated. Analyzing the discourse is critical to understanding how eugenic discourse persists within the field, despite genetic counseling self-described anti-eugenic mission. This is particularly critical at a time when, nationally, reproductive rights are shifting dramatically and different iterations of eugenic ideology are reemerging. This research aims to not simply analyze and understand, but to actively interrupt ableist and eugenic practices within the genetic counseling field, discourse which has ongoing negative impacts on the disabled and neurodivergent communities.
Portfolio Advisor: Amoshaun Toft, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Christian Anderson, Ph.D.
Sophia Nicholson Keener: Clawing at the Margins: Insisting on Culture When We are Told There is None
In 2023, the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington assigned a team of students to work with the Employment Security Department. The Department wanted to better understand the “cultural changes” associated with paid leave taking. Throughout the twenty week course of the project it became apparent that the Department, despite asking an explicit question about culture and cultural change, was uninterested in reading a report about culture. It also became clear that the Evans School was pedagogically ill equipped to engage with policy and policy analysis as a site of cultural re/production – let alone as a material vehicle for meaningful cultural change.
In this video presentation, I explore my experience collaborating on the Evans School policy capstone as a cultural studies student. I emphasize the importance of understanding policy work as cultural work. Finally, I explore the use of peripheral spaces like margins, footnotes, callouts, and appendices to push back against the silencing effects of rigid formatting expectations.
Portfolio Advisor: Ron Krabill, Ph.D.
Capstone Advisor: Camille Walsh, Ph.D.
Questions or comments?
Contact the IAS Graduate Office at iasgrad@uw.edu.
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