Graduate Students
Below is the list of current graduate students and details about their research interests.
Current Graduate Students
Ilyas Abukar (ilyasabukar@gmail.com)
Ilyas Abukar is a McNair fellow. He received his undergraduate degree in Comparative Literature with a minor in English from Pennsylvania State University. Ilyas’s research focuses on African American history, culture, and ethnicity; Africa’s relationship with the United States; critical race theory; hip-hop and popular culture; social movements; American cartoons; and performances of Islam in the U.S.
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Asim Ali (aali@umd.edu)
Asim Ali is a doctoral candidate. His research interests include cyberculture, media and television studies, race and slavery, and religion in American culture. He founded and directs the Project on Religion, Culture, and Globalization.
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Aaron Allen (acallen@umd.edu)
Aaron is a fourth year Ph.D. Student in the Department of American Studies. He recieved his B.A. in Sociology and M.A. in African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests include mixed race studies, intersectional approaches to black identity, visual/popular culture. He his specifically interested in examining mixed race male identity as it relates to notions of authentic black male masculinity.
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Portia Barker (portia.barker@yahoo.com)
Portia is a fourth year Ph.D. student in American Studies. Her research interests include African-American material culture, African-American middle-class, and African-American Women’s Studies. African American folk art and lore as well as contemporary pop culture including TV, film and music are also of interest. She earned a B.A. in History from Texas Christian University in 2006 and an M.A. in American Studies from The University of Alabama in 2008. Portia is a native of Houston, Texas.
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Darius Bost (bostdr4@gmail.com)
Darius Bost is a Ph.D. student in American Studies. His research interests include feminist theory, queer theory, masculinity studies, trauma studies, and black literatures and cultures. He is particularly interested in researching how black men negotiate their gender and sexual identities through traumatic experiences. He earned an M.A. in English from Rutgers University-Newark and a B.A. in Communication from Wake Forest University.
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Aaron Bryant (aebryant@umd.edu)
Aaron is curator for the James E. Lewis Museum of Art at Morgan State University. His honors include a Burroughs-Wright Fellowship with the Association of African American Museums, a Lord Baltimore Fellowship with the Maryland Historical Society, an Exhibition Research and Design Fellowship with the Historical Electronics Museum, and a Gertrude Johnson Williams National Literary Prize. His current curatorial projects include: “Most Daring Dream: Robert Houston Photography and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign,” a traveling exhibition of photographs taken during Houston’s Life Magazine coverage of Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s March in DC; “Paper, Paint and Steel: The Art of Mel Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt and William T. Williams,” a collaborative project with the four artists; and “William H. Johnson: An American Modern,” a traveling exhibition and catalog organized in association with the Smithsonian. Aaron has written for Black Enterprise, The Crisis Magazine, Africana.com, the New England Theatre Journal, Black Issues Book Review and Callaloo. He received his Bachelors in History from Duke and his Masters in Fine Arts from Yale.
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Cornelia Cody (cornelia.cody@nyu.edu)
Cornelia is a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on humor, specifically New York City humor. Her dissertation will be on the humor elements of the New York City personal experience narrative. Cornelia is an adjunct instructor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She teaches a course titled “What’s So Funny About New York?” for the Undergraduate Drama department.
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Kirsten Crase (klcrase@umd.edu)
Kirsten is a doctoral candidate in the American Studies program. Her research interests include ethnography, cultural landscape studies, place-based studies, environmental history, public history, urban studies, and Appalachian Studies. Her dissertation employs ethnographic and cultural landscape studies methods to comparatively explore the discourses of place, home, and environment in two communities undergoing significant upheavals in their physical, cultural, and built environments: Southeast Washington, D.C. and the Appalachian coalfields community of Letcher County, Kentucky. She has taught courses in material culture and ethnography for the American Studies department, as well as a course on historical research methods for the Historic Preservation program. She has also taught introductory American Studies courses for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s American Studies department. Kirsten holds a B.A. in American Studies and History from St. Olaf College, and she is also pursuing a certificate in Historic Preservation.
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Maddy Fickes (mfickes@umd.edu)
Maddy is a Ph.D. student in American Studies. She received her Bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in May of 2007. Her primary research interests surround the disadvantages shared by young people growing up in extremely rural and/or urban settings that stem from the similarly low incomes of many families in such areas. In order to stay engaged and motivated in her work, she draws on her experiences surrounding her own upbringing in a tiny Pennsylvania town and her move to Baltimore to attend college. Also, she loves working face to face with people, and as a result, relies on ethnographic methods for most of her research projects.
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Bethany M. Gibson (bgibson1@umd.edu)
Bethany is a Masters candidate. Her scholarly interests are in gender studies, popular culture, and ethnography. However, she plans to focus her scholarly article on pet ownership – particularly dogs – and and why people perceive themselves to own pets. She would also like to see how issues of identity and control impact dog ownership and play a role in the relationship between owner and pet. Bethany completed her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland in American Studies and Women’s Studies. Originally from Maryland, she is excited to have such a fantastic program so close to home.
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Ashley Glacel (avglacel@aol.com)
Ashley Glacel is a Ph.D. student interested in studying modern forms of American story-telling in popular culture, specifically how they are and can be used for persuasive, political, and progressive ends by media figures and public intellectuals. She received her B.A. in Public Policy with a minor in Women’s Studies from the College of William & Mary, and her M.A. in Liberal Studies from the New School for Social Research.
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Kenyatta Dorey Graves (kdg1906@umd.edu)
Kenyatta Dorey Graves is a Ph.D. student in American Studies. His research interests include African American identity politics and the oral, written, and visual representations of black same-gender-loving men. Kenyatta’s general interests include literature, film, pop culture, folklore, and material culture. He earned a B.A. from George Mason University and an M.F.A. from the University of Maryland. Kenyatta has published literary criticism and fiction and is a self-employed K-12 education consultant, specializing in curriculum, instruction, and professional development for various school districts across the nation.
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Daniel Greene (dan.greene10@gmail.com)
Dan is a Ph.D. student. He received his B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Maryland and is excited to return. After graduation, Dan worked as a counselor at a local mental health clinic. His research interests include visual culture, the history of science and technology, media studies, and social scientific approaches to digital media and its users. Dan is a University Flagship Fellow who tries to find time for the good things in life: cooking, comic books, soccer, and all things DC.
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Cassy Griff (cassy.griff@gmail.com)
Cassy Griff received her B.A. in American Studies and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Cornell University. Her research examines the various forms of control and discipline enacted upon fat bodies, especially those belonging to Latina and African American women. She is currently focused on material mechanisms of control and how these modes of discipline shape actual and imagined bodies.
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Elizabeth M. Hagovsky (sinisterwisdom@yahoo.com)
Elizabeth is an M.A. student with interests in film theory and production, with a specific focus on documentaries and ethnographic film.
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Douglas Ishii (dishii@umd.edu)
Douglas S. Ishii is a Ph.D. student who is approaching candidacy. He met the requirements for the Critical Theory Certificate in spring 2010. His research engages the broad fields of aesthetics, affect theory, critical ethnic studies, pedagogy, and popular culture. He has presented work on a range of subjects, including student organizations, television, American literature, and popular music at local, regional, and national conferences. He graduated with a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Irvine, and completed work in the Cultural Studies program at Claremont Graduate University. Before entering the program, Douglas worked as an academic counselor, and completed a research internship with the National Japanese American Historical Society. Douglas is currently a graduate instructor for the department, and serves as one of the 2010-2011 Honors Humanities Teaching Fellows. His pastimes include providing a running commentary on bad TV, acting as the appointed ’08 cohort social chair, assisting in editing the department newsletter, and forever searching for great places to eat.
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Bailey Kier (bkier@umd.edu)
Bailey is a Ph.D. student. His research interests include the intersections of gender, class, race, and sexuality. He focuses on the connections, contradictions, and meshing of queer and working class cultures.
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Tiffany King (tjking@umd.edu)
Tiffany King is a fourth-year doctoral student. Her research areas include Black women’s activism, historical memory, Black feminism, transnational feminism and state theory. She holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. from the University of Toronto.
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Shayna Maskell (smaskell@umd.edu)
Shayna Maskell is studying for her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Maryland, writing her dissertation on the Washington DC punk rock scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s through the lens of social movement and subcultural theory. She has previously been published in the Journal of Popular Music Studies, presented papers on Patti Smith and music as a form of social change, “Bad Brains and the Construction of Identity,” “Class and Race in DC Punk Rock,” and “The World Social Forum and Post-Colonialism.” Prior to her time at Maryland, she received her master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Southern California, where she taught writing for three years and received two teaching awards.
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Izetta Autumn Mobley (izettamobley@hotmail.com)
Izetta Autumn Mobley received her B.A. in American Civilization from Brown University. Izetta’s research interests focus on how the disabled black body is framed and constituted within visual culture, museum spaces, and art practices; the intersection of gender, race, and class; and critical race theory. Prior to pursuing her graduate study, Izetta worked in the education field, focused on college access for low income and first-generation students.
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Jarah Moesch (www.thejarahtree.com)
Jarah Moesch is a doctoral student in American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and holds a BA from University of Maryland and an M.F.A. in Integrated Media Art from Hunter College. She is also affiliated with Digital Cultures and Creativity, a Living-Learning program in the Honors College, and is a HASTAC Scholar for 2010-2011. Her current work is grounded in queer theory and intersectionality and uses performance as a methodology to interrogate how shifting internal identities and external histories are produced through non-visible social networks made present through mobile technologies. Jarah’s artwork revolves around concepts of gentrification, privacy, and performance of gender, identity, and sexuality in everyday life through the intersections of power and ritual in public space. Her artwork – from online and street-level games, to video art and performance – has been exhibited worldwide.
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Kristina Nies (kristina.nies@gmail.com)
Kristina is a second-year student in the program. She received her M.A. in Gastronomy from Boston University and B.A. in History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests involve looking at how persons transitioning genders (re)negotiate foodways.
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Gabriel Peoples (gpeoples@umd.edu)
Gabriel Peoples studied English and African Studies at The University of Michigan. He went on to study Africana Studies at Cornell University. He is interested in researching and actively participating in Black expressive subcultures. As far as teaching, he would like to engage in innovative ways to integrate creative expression with the academic classroom.
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Christopher J. Pérez (chripere@gmail.com)
Christopher is a sixth-year doctoral student in the Department of American Studies. His work has been largely informed by poststructuralist thought, queer theory, and cultural studies scholarship. Christopher holds degrees in English Literature, Women’s Studies, and American Studies. His current research interests include transnationalism, ethnography, and intersectional approaches to identity. Christopher’s specific research in the Department of American Studies at University of Maryland is an ethnographic exploration of gay men living in the US under political asylum. Christopher also teaches “Introduction to Popular Culture and Cultural Studies” in the Department of American Studies and is the GSG representative for American Studies.
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T’Sey-Haye Preaster (tseyhaye.preaster@gmail.com)
T’Sey-Haye Preaster received her B.A. in Afro-American Studies and Sociology from Smith College. T’Sey-Haye’s research interests include Black women’s history (particulary the “women’s club era,” 1896-1950); philanthropy; Black feminist theory; and the intersections and impact of race, gender, and class on cultures of giving, identity formation, and group uplift for/by Black women.
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Xinqian Qiu (poemqiu@gmail.com)
Xinqian Qiu earned her M.A. in Chinese Ceramic Art History and B.A. in English from Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China. Her research interests involve historic preservation and museums of Asian American heritage.
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Paul Saiedi (psaiedi@gmail.com)
Paul is new to the east coast, hailing from Southern California and is a second-year Ph.D. student who recently received his Masters Degree in American Studies from the California State University of Fullerton. He is currently pursing research on the history and experiences of Middle Eastern Americans and the ways that they have been situated and left out of various discourses in American thought. His broader academic interests are centered on how marginalized communities or communities labeled as such, resist power structures and embody their resistance in art.
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Mary Savig (SavigM@si.edu)
Mary Savig earned her B.A. in Classical Humanities and Art History from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and her M.A, in Art History from George Washington University. Her broad research objective is to understand the historical development of craft in the 20th century and how it has functioned as an indicator of culture.
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Stephanie Stevenson (steph_stevenson10@yahoo.com)
Stephanie Stevenson received her B.A. in American Studies with Honors from the University of Maryland, College Park in May 2010. She is currently leading a mentoring and intervention program in a Baltimore City public school, which also serves as a three year longitudinal study that explores how black adolescent female students navigate everyday encounters with academic, social, and sexual experiences. The program also addresses middle school girls’ academic resiliency, healthy development, and chances of socioeconomic mobility. Stephanie’s other research interests are: urban black families, gender performance, public secrets, body politics, urban social policies, and 21st century hip hop culture.
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Heidi Temple (htemple@umd.edu)
Heidi is a fifth-year Ph.D. student who has completed the Women’s Studies Certification. Originally from the Philadelphia area, Heidi graduated with a B.S. in Education – English and Communications from Kutztown University and taught high school English, Speech and Theatre for seven years. She left teaching to return to graduate school full time and earned an M.A.in Theatre Studies and a Museum Studies Certification from Florida State University in 2004. Her current work focuses on Disability Studies and questions of identity and othering in popular culture (tv, film, and theatre), as well as exploring the idea of the body as a public space. Her dissertation work explores the rhetorics of American feminism from a Disability Studies perspective.
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Catherine Stewart Thomas (sbcsthomas@yahoo.com)
Catherine is a Master’s student concentrating on 18th and 19th century material culture and historic preservation. She also has full-time job as Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
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Maria E. Vargas (mvargas5@umd.edu)
Maria is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of American Studies at University of Maryland, College Park. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a Minor in Spanish from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. Her research interests include intersectional approaches to identity in contemporary diasporic Latina lesbian communities that span different “borders.” Maria has conducted primary research in New Mexico and Chicago including an ethnographic project with Latina lesbians in the Southwest border (El Paso/Juarez and rural New Mexico and Mexico) and a focus group study with Latina lesbian students in Urbana-Champaign that examined representations of “lesbians” in popular culture. She is currently working towards expanding her research base by incorporating issues of immigration among Latina lesbians in major metro poles including Washington, DC; New York; and Chicago, IL and examining how meanings are made within those spaces.
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Maria I. Velazquez (maria.i.velazquez@gmail.com)
Maria Velazquez’ research interests include constructions of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary media. She also works on issues related to the mechanisms of collective memory as they pertain to communities of color. She interned this summer at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and will be working with the Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity during the academic year.
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Jessica Walker (jesskw3@gmail.com)
Jessica is a second year Ph.D. student in American Studies. She received her B.A. from Bowdoin College in Anthropology and Gender and Women’s Studies in 2009. Jessica’s research interests focus on exploring the relationship between black women and their preparation, cooking, and consumption of “soul food.” Other interests include material culture, Black Feminist Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, and Feminist Theory. Jessica is a native of Cleveland, Ohio.
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Shane Walsh (shanebwalsh@gmail.com)
Shane is a Ph.D. student in the Department of American Studies. He earned his B.A. in Anthropology from Washington College and his M.A. in African American Studies at Morgan State University. He has served as research assistant to the curator of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore, and expects to focus his research on museum studies and material culture.
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Elise White (elisemwhite@gmail.com)
Elise White is a doctoral candidate whose interests include youth organizing and activism, ethnography, and the school-to-prison pipeline. She is currently conducting dissertation research with young women in an alternative-to-incarceration program in New York City. She also designed and runs a youth organizing program for young people who live in the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn, is a member of the New York Juvenile Justice Coalition, and sits on the junior board of Advocates for Children of New York.
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Terrance Wooten (terrance.wooten@gmail.com)
Terrance Wooten earned is B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in African American and African Studies from The Ohio State University. His current research focuses on the ways in which nonheteronormative black bodies have used popular media, visual art, social spaces, and literature as a way to assert their agency and their political and cultural citizenship rights as well as make claims to racial authenticity.