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Broadly, my research examines the relationships between economic structures, such as globalized apparel production and student debt, and the ways in which these structures are represented across different media. More specifically, I explore how these representations impact cultural perceptions of racialized gender, economic class, and national belonging.
My current book project, Seeing Labor, examines representations of fashion's labors in U.S. media. In it, I query the political interventions and truths that are made possible by the imagery of the sweatshop. I examine archival documents, news media, U.S. anti-sweatshop movement texts, and economic policy regarding apparel production, retail labor, and fashion internships. Tracing the arc of U.S. anti-sweatshop discourse from the early twentieth century's concern with immigrant garment workers to the more recent proliferation of ethical fashion markets, I outline how this discourse has often coincided with the anxieties of a xenophobic and protectionist U.S. public, concerned with job loss and racial hierarchy.
My research has won the support of numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, including Honorable Mention in the National Women's Studies Association's and University of Illinois Press's First Book Prize Competition, and the American Association of University Women's Dissertation Completion Fellowship. In 2018, I was an invited speaker in the Gender and Women's Studies Fortieth Anniversary Speaker Series at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I regularly present at the meetings of the National Women's Studies Association, the American Studies Association, and the Cultural Studies Association.
ACADEMIC WRITING
Book
Seeing Labor, Under contract with the University of Illinois Press.
Articles
"Indebted Adulthood in Queer Times," The Feminist Review, No. 132 (November 2022).
"'Dressed Like a Stripper': Visualizing Poverty in Ethical Fashion," Feminist Formations, 33.1 (Spring 2021).
"Doing What You Love in the Age of Mass Debt." Lateral: Journal of Cultural Studies, 7.1 (Spring 2018).
Reviews & Public Scholarship
"Teaching Students to See Sweatshops." Films for the Feminist Classroom, 9.1 (2019).
"Sex on the Beach: Swimwear and the Politics of Gender." The Fashion Studies Journal (2020).
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