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 theory, feminist theory, visual culture of security, latinx 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: Asian American visual culture, Asian American Movement, artist collectives, cultural memory, and alternative press
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 art history and visual culture, trash art, socially engaged collaboration and artist collectives, eco-aesthetics, biopolitics, and critical theory
Maggie Dethloff
M.A., Visual Studies, UC Irvine
B.A., Art History, Smith CollegeAdvisor: Cécile Whiting
Research Interests: Photography, 20th-century American art, appropriation, text, especially found text, linguistics and semiotics, materiality, and death, and curatorial practice
Kelly Donahey
M.F.A., Art, University of California, Irvine
B.F.A., Photography, San Francisco Art InstituteAdvisor: James Nisbet
Research Interest: Art of the 1970s; theory and conceptual art; photography and appropriation practices; Jack Goldstein; experimental film and media; realism; einfühlung; cybernetics; immanent critique
Website: http://www.kellydonahey.com/
Kathie Foley-Meyer
M.F.A., California Institute of the Arts
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, 1930-1970"
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.
Finley Freibert
Ph.D., Applied and Industrial Mathematics, University of Louisville
M.A., University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
B.A., DePauw University, Greencastle, INAdvisor: Bliss Cua Lim
Research Interests: Queer Studies and Histories, Media Industry Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Film and Media Histories, Media Censorship and Regulation, Digital Media, Cultures of Circulation and Access
Publications: Freibert, Finley. “Scream Queens and Queer Dreams: The Politics of Monotony and Zoning Out in Jesús Franco’s Direct-to-Video Productions.” The Films of Jess Franco. Ed. Antonio Lázaro-Reboll and Ian Olney. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2018. Print.
[Published August 20, 2018.]
Website: https://uci.academia.edu/FinleyFreibert
Sarah Fugfugosh-Munoz
M.A., California State University, Los Angeles
B.A., Art History, California State University, Los AngelesAdvisor: Lyle Massey
Research Interest: Seventeenth century visual culture in Italy and France, aerial illusionism [di sotto in sù and quadratura], Baroque religious theater and scenography, the development and tradition of iconographic and emblematic literature.
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
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
Shawn Jewett
M.A., Humanities, Visual Studies, University of Colorado at Denver
B.S., Marketing, Georgetown University;
B.A., Theatre Film & Television, University of Colorado at DenverAdvisor: Victoria Johnson
Research Interest: Representations of class in popular American film and media, class and political economy, social semiotics, film history/industry and neoliberalism
Asako Katsura
M.A., (with distinction) Japanese Studies, Sophia University, Japan
B.A., Art History, International Christian University, JapanAdvisor: Bert Winther-Tamaki
Research Interests: Asian American visual culture, modern Japanese art, California Modernism, queer theory, feminist theory
Aaron Katzeman
B.A. (summa cum laude with honors) Art History, certificate in Environmental Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Advisor: James Nisbet
Research Interests: Modern and contemporary art, land art, ecologies and geographies, climate change, environmental justice, socially engaged art, postcolonialism, global studies, infrastructure
Tavleen Kaur
M.S., Architectural History & Theory, University of Washington
M.S., History & Theory of Architecture, University of Michigan
B.A., University of North Carolina-CharlotteAdvisor: Bridget Cooks
Research Interests: How the bodies and buildings of ethno-religious minority communities become victims of hate violence. In particular, she looks at how the contemporary Sikh American community has been racialized and victimized due to state violence in the form of Islamophobic rhetoric and policies; Sikh American community’s buildings (gurdwara) becoming targets of racist graffiti, vandalism, and arson, as fueled by Islamophobic and xenophobic hate speech and policy. She examines how the Sikh American community reproduces narratives of nationhood and belonging and how it challenges various tropes of state violence that target its bodies and buildings.
Justin Keever
B.A. (with highest honors & distinction) Communications/New Media Theory and Production, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Advisor: Braxton Soderman
Research Interests: Game Studies, Modernity and the experience of digital space, Semiotics, Post-Structuralism, Structural Marxism, Subjectivity, Autonomism
Matthew Knutson
M.Ed., Secondary Education, University of Minnesota
M.A., English, Boston College
B.A., University of Wisconsin, Madison, WIAdvisor: Braxton Soderman
Research Interests: Esports, skillful play, the temporality of new media, game studies, and the politics of digital experience
Website: https://uci.academia.edu/MatthewKnutson
Nastasya Kosygina
B.A., University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Benjamin Kruger-Robbins
M.A., Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas, Austin
B.S. (with highest honors), Radio-Television-Film, University of Texas, AustinAdvisor: Victoria Johnson
Research Interests: Television and LGBTQ studies, marginalized audiences, network branding, and critical race theory
Dissertation: “Queering and Qualifying the Wasteland: Network Television, Awards Discourse, and Gay Legitimation in Primetime from 1971-1997”
Website: https://uci.academia.edu/BenjaminKrugerRobbins
Austen 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
Ashley Bryan Marin
B.A., (with highest distinction) in Art History and Criticism, University of California, San Diego
Advisor: Allison Perlman
Research Interest: The Sublime; Popular and Visual Culture; Mexican Diaspora; 18th - 19th century European art; Latin American Surrealism; Psychoanalysis; Phenomenology; the Uncanny; Intersections of Art and Technology; Post- Humanism; Classical Art and Architecture; Italian Renaissance
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 Inferior in American Print"
Research Interests: Visualization of social stereotypes, print culture, text and image, image as science, portrait genres
Website: http://www.christinemugnolo.com/
Mary Schmitt
M.A., Humanities, University of Chicago
B.A., (with university honors) Art History, University of Illinois at ChicagoAdvisor: Allison Perlman
Dissertation: "Neoliberalism and Black Radical Memory in Popular Culture"
Research Interests: Race and political economy in popular culture, cultural memory, black radical politics and cultural production, postcolonial theory and cultural studies, African and African diaspora art and politics
Publications: “By Any Means Necessary” A Neoliberal Sound Byte? The Memory of Malcolm
X in the 1990s CBS Documentary Malcolm X: The Real Story.” Black Camera:
An International Film Journal 9, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 10-32.
Website: https://uci.academia.edu/MarySchmitt
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/
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(s): Matthew Canepa
KT Wong
B.A., Music and Theater, Lafayette College
Advisor: Braxton Soderman
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 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: Art and Ecology, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art in the Global
Context, Performance Art
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