Graduate Students
Benjamin Aaron
M.A. (with distinction), Japanese Language and Culture, University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
B.A., Japanese Literature, University of FloridaAdvisor: Bert Winther-Tamaki
Research Interests: Post-WWII Japanese visual arts, trauma Studies, memory/memorialization, representation of trauma/atrocities, cultural memory, avant-garde/modernism, East-West dialectical influences
Shane Breitenstein
M.A., Visual Studies, UC Irvine
B.A. (with highest honors) Sociology/Anthropology and English Literature, Swarthmore CollegeAdvisor: Lucas Hilderbrand
Dissertation: "Latchkey Law: Media Regulation and the Imperiled Tween"
Research Interests: The visual culture of adolescence and childhood, the 1980s, queer and feminist theory, media regulation, television, horror and melodrama, pornography
Dan Bustillo
M.F.A., Art and Technology, Integrated Media, California Institute of the Arts
B.A., Art, Hunter College City of New YorkAdvisor: Bliss Lim
Research Interest: Queer and trans of color theory, feminist theory, media of resistance, queer latinx studies, security studies, surveillance studies
Samantha Carter
M.A., New Media and Digital Cultures, University of Amsterdam
B.A., Modern Culture and Media, Brown UniversityAdvisors: Bambi Haggins and Allison Perlman
Research Interest: Experience of marginalized creatives in film & television in the digital era. She is investigating this topic through what Dawn Mannay calls a researcher-initiated production, recruiting interested artists to collaborate in the development of an experimental television pilot.
Kylie Ching
M.A. Art History, University of California, Irvine
B.A., Art History and English, University of California, IrvineAdvisors: Cécile Whiting and Bert Winther-Tamaki
Research Interest: Research interests: Asian American visual culture, contemporary American art history, feminist theory, cultural memory, alternative press, and artist collectives
Marianna Davison
M.A., Visual Culture, Illinois State University
B.A., Art History, University of Texas at AustinAdvisor: James Nisbet
Research Interests: Modern and contemporary American art history and visual culture, the history of photography, museum studies, critical environmental studies, landscape reclamation, indigenous sovereignty and activism, socially engaged collaboration and artist collectives.
Kelly Donahey
M.F.A., Art, University of California, Irvine, M.A., University of California, Irvine
B.F.A., Photography, San Francisco Art InstituteAdvisor: Catherine Liu
Research Interest: Art theories and practices of the nineteen seventies; media art; persistent modernisms, realism and appropriation; art criticism; art pedagogy.
Website: http://www.kellydonahey.com/
Kathie Foley-Meyer
M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts, M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.S. International Politics, Georgetown UniversityAdvisor: Bridget Cooks
Research Interests: the history of African Americans in Los Angeles-1940s and beyond, invisibility and hyper-visibility of black women in art and popular culture, social issues in contemporary black visual culture
Website: http://www.kf-m.com/
Julian Francolino
M.A., Visual Studies, UC Irvine
Advisor: Aglaya Glebova
Dissertation: "Variations on Monumentality: Laboring Bodies and Socialist Imagery, 1935-1965"
Research Interest: Modern art, realism and modernism, Interwar art and visual culture, Cold War art and visual culture, Socialist Realism, monuments and monumentality, Monumental Propaganda.
Sarah Fugfugosh-Munoz
M.A., California State University, Los Angeles
B.A., Art History, California State University, Los AngelesAdvisor: Lyle Massey
Research Interest: Early modern art, visual culture and gender studies in Italy and France. Early modern subjectivity, social identity construction and corporeality in art, literature and natural philosophy; 16th and 17th century female artistic production, portraiture, visual and literary self-portraiture, and epistolary culture.
Eric Hahn
M.A., New York University
B.A., Purchase College State University of New YorkAdvisor: Peter Krapp
Research Interest: Emotion & Affect, Popular Memory, Technology & Culture, Body Genres, Autonomism
Ari Hakkarainen
M.A., History and Criticism of Art, Florida State University
B.A., History and Criticism of Art, Florida State UniversityAdvisor: Roland Betancourt
Research Interests: Byzantine art and architecture; the modernist engagement with Byzantium; Queer identity, queer theory, and queer studies; Ideas of the historical past, contemporaneity, and futurity; Queer medievalisms; the history of photography; art and LGBTQ activism
Sharrissa Iqbal
M.A., History and Theory of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute
B.A., Art History, University of Southern CaliforniaAdvisor: Cécile Whiting
Research Interests: California Modernism, Minimalism, abstract art, design
Asako Katsura
M.A., (with distinction) Japanese Studies, Sophia University, Japan
B.A., Art History, International Christian University, JapanAdvisor: Bert Winther-Tamaki
Research Interests: Modern and contemporary Japanese art (1850s–1940s), art and visual culture of Japanese countryside before the Asia Pacific War, the culture of eroguro nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense) in the 1920s–1930s Japan,memorialization of war trauma in postwar Japan, Asian American art and visual culture, California modernism, queer theory, photography, crafts.
Aaron Katzeman
M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.A. (summa cum laude with honors) Art History, certificate in Environmental Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at MānoaAdvisor: James Nisbet
Research Interests: Modern and contemporary art, documentary photography, socially engaged art, environmental
film, global studies, political ecology, decolonization, land use, cultural geography, climate change
Justin Keever
M.A., Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine
B.A. (with highest honors & highest distinction) Communications/New Media Theory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Production, University of North Carolina at Chapel HillAdvisor: Braxton Soderman
Research Interests: New Media, Game Studies, Modernity and the experience of digital space, Semiotics, Post-Structuralism, Structural Marxism, Subjectivity, Autonomism
Nastasya Kosygina
B.A., University of Minnesota-Twin CitiesResearch Interest: Archaeology and material culture of the late antique eastern Mediterranean and western Asia, human relationships to materiality and their effect upon the material debris of praxis, etic and emic concepts of "magic" vs premodern landscapes of doing, non-luxury material culture and human intentionality, the unintelligible word and the non-legible inscription, Greek and Syriac epigraphy and paleography.
Jamie Leopold
B.A. (with high honors), English, Oberlin College
Research interests: Reality television, U.S. media culture, historical materialism, queer subjectivity, citizenship, the national imaginary
Edward Charles Mendez
M.A. Public Engagement - University of Nevada, Reno
B.A. English (Writing Specialization) - University of Nevada, RenoResearch Interests: Black film, racial representation in film and media, blackness, humor, critical race theory, feminist theory, political economy, American literature, rhetoric, and cultural studies.
Christine Mugnolo
M.A., Early Modern Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
M.F.A., Studio Art Concentration in Painting and Printmaking, University of Connecticut
M.F.A., Studio Art, Concentration in Painting, Indiana University
B.A., magna cum laude, Art History, Princeton UniversityAdvisor: Cécile Whiting
Dissertation: "The Adolescent in American Print"
Research Interests: Comic studies, image as a science, American print culture, relationship between text and image in Western art, history of 19th and 20th century comic strips and visual satire, visual models of childhood from popular cultural and medical venues.
Website: http://www.christinemugnolo.com/
Quyên Nguyen-Le
B.A. Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Politics and Law, University of Southern California
Research Interests: critical refugee studies, queer and trans of color feminisms, artistic praxis, transnational cinema, transformative justice
Website, https://www.quyennl.com/
Molly Katharine Thrailkill
M.A. (with distinction), History of Art, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
B.A., Art & Art History and French, Colgate UniversityAdvisor: Cécile Whiting
Research Interest: History of photography, photojournalism, and documentary; American art and visual culture; new media and digital rendering.
Website: https://mkthrailkill.com/
Ella Turenne
M.A., Media Studies, The New School
B.A., Psychology (Studio Art, Theatre Art Minors), Stony Brook UniversityResearch Interests: Black film, television and media, cultural production, feminist theory, critical race theory, Caribbean history, Black history, art and social justice, mass incarceration, podcast culture, digital humanities, race and justice
Website: http://www.ellaturenne.com/
Ella is the creator and co-host of the podcast "Fanm on Films" https://fanmonfilms.com/ because of her love of cinema, Haitian culture and the power of community. Each season, this show bring you reviews of Haitian movies old and new, as well as interviews with Haitian filmmakers and actors to talk about their work.
Lucena Lau Valle
M.S., Art History, Pratt Institute, NY
B.A., Art History, San Francisco State University, CAAdvisor: Cécile Whiting
Research Interests: Museum studies, urban studies, cultural political economy, Latina & Latino studies, Asian American studies, Los Angeles, cultural memory and public humanities
Scott Volz
M.A., Art History and Criticism, SUNY Stony Brook
B.A., Art History, Kent State UniversityAdvisor: James Nisbet
Research Interests: Earth art, media practices, modern and contemporary art, political ecology, environmentalism, ecocriticism and geophilosophy, biopolitics, climate change, the Anthropocene, historical and new materialism, critical theory
Mallory Elizabeth Wells
B.A., Art History, Occidental CollegeAdvisor: Matthew Canepa
Research Interests: Transcultural exchange and visualities of authority in the late antique Mediterranean, the late antique Near East, and the early European Middle Ages.
KT Wong
B.A., Music and Theater, Lafayette College
Advisor: Bonnie Ruberg
Research interests: Game studies, ludomusicology, media archaeology, translation studies, transmedia storytelling
Siavash Yansori
M.A, Film & Media Studies, Columbia University
M.F.A, Photography, University of CincinnatiResearch Interest: Iranian and Middle Eastern Cinema,
Melodrama, History of Photography, Postcolonialism, Gender, and Queer Studies
Xinyue (Lulu) Yuan
M.A. (with distinction), History of Art and Archeology, University of London
B.A., Liberal Arts, Sun Yat-sen UniversityAdvisor: Roberta Wue
Research Interests: Modern Chinese art and visual culture in a global context. Her recent research focuses on the intersection of art, literature, and media by examining the overlooked beginnings of modern Chinese artists’ books in the early 20th century.
Layah Ziaii-Bigdeli
M.A., Art History Concentration in Cultural Heritage and Preservation, Rutgers University–New Brunswick
B.A., Art History & Archeology, Columbia UniversityAdvisor: Matthew P. Canepa
Research Interests: Sasanian Art and Archaeology, Islamic Art and Archaeology, Persian Language and Literature, Numismatics, Museum studies, Cultural Heritage, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Website:http://uci.academia.edu/LayahZiaiiBigdeli
Jessica Ziegenfuss
M.A., Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University
B.A. (with honors) Women's Studies and History of Art, The Ohio State UniversityAdvisor: James Nisbet
Dissertation: The Matter of Eva Hesse: Industrial Collage, Latex, and Plastics within Post-War Material Culture, 1964-1969.
Research Interests: Feminist and queer theory, critical theory, ecological studies of art, postminimalism, issues of materiality and art, scientific experimentation in art, and the history of synthetics and the petrochemical industry
Website: https://jziegenfuss.weebly.com