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Speakers...

Lawrence Grossberg, Ph.D.
Morris Davis Professor of Communications and Cultural Studies
The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Recognized internationally as one of the leading exponents of the cultural studies project, Professor Grossberg is the author of over one hundred books, journal articles, and edited collections. Hailed by Stuart Hall as one of cultural studies “leading practitioners and most engaged and distinctive voices,” his contributions to the field are above compare. He also played the pivotal role of co-director (with Paula A. Treichler and Cary Nelson) for the ground-breaking 1990 Cultural Studies Conference hosted here at the University of Illinois campus. His current research focuses on globalization, America’s war against children, and the modernist foundations of cultural theory, and includes two forthcoming books - Kids Caught in the Crossfire: America at War with Itself and The Heart of Cultural Studies: A Hitchhiker's Guide. Other books include It's a Sin: Essays on Postmodernism, Politics and Culture (1988); We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture (1992); Dancing in Spite of Myself: Essays in Popular Culture (1997); Bringing It All Back Home: Essays in Cultural Studies (1997); and MediaMaking (1998). He is also co-editor of several books--including Cultural Studies (1991, with Paula Treichler and Cary Nelson), Without Guarantees: In Honor of Stuart Hall (2000, with Paul Gilroy and Angela McRobbie); Sound and Vision (1993) and The Audience and its Landscapes (1996)--as well as the journal Cultural Studies.

Related Links:
“A Prisoner of the Modern” by Lawrence Grossberg (2nd ‘Crossroads in Cultural Studies’ conference, Tampere Finland, July 1998.)
“Rock and the Resistance to Rock” by Lawrence Grossberg (Australian Key Center for Cultural and Media Policy, Nov. 1998).
Lawrence Grossberg’s CV

Meaghan Morris, Ph.D.
Chair Professor and Head
Department of Cultural Studies
Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

One of the foremost commentators on Australian and Asian-Pacific popular culture, and one of the leading theorists of Feminist Cultural Studies, Professor Morris has long been regarded as one of the major figures in contemporary Cultural Studies. She is currently Chair Professor of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, Hong Kong, and Adjunct Professor to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. Her books include Race, Panic and the Memory of Migrations (2002, co-edited with Brett de Bary); Too Soon, Too Late: History and Popular Culture (1998); Australian Cultural Studies: A Reader (1993, co-edited with John Frow); Ecstasy and Economics: American Essays for John Forbes (1992); and The Pirate’s Fiancee: Feminism, Reading, and Postmodernism (1988).

Bryant Keith Alexander, Ph.D.
California State University, Los Angeles

Bryant Keith Alexander is Associate Professor of Performance and Pedagogical Studies in the Department of Communication Studies at California State University Los Angeles. His research is grounded in the social and performative construction of identity as related to issues of race, culture and gender—often placing these concerns within the broad context of education, schooling and specifically in the classroom. His work uses qualitative, critical, and performative methodologies including what is constructed as performative writing, interpretive ethnography, and autoethnography. Most recently his work has specifically turned to cultural geography, studies in which he focuses on the spatial constitution of society through the mediating effects of culture. His published essays have appeared in a wide variety of scholarly journals including: Qualitative Inquiry, Theatre Annual, Theatre Topics, Callaloo, Text and Performance Quarterly, and others. He has published numerous book chapters in, among others: The Image of the Outsider; Beacon Best 2000: Best Writing of Men and Women of all Colors; Communication, Race, and Family; The Future of Performance Studies. Professor Alexander is the co-editor of the upcoming volume Performing Education: Pedagogy, Identity and Reform (Erlbaum). He currently serves as the Performance and Pedagogy section editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Performance Studies (SAGE), and is contributing a chapter on "Performance Ethnography" to the Third Edition of The Handbook of Qualitative Inquiry (SAGE). In 2002, he was awarded the Norman K. Denzin Outstanding Qualitative Research Award from the Carl Couch Center, Department of Communication Studies, University of Northern Iowa for his essay, "(Re)Visioning the Ethnographic Site: Interpretive Ethnography as a Method of Pedagogical Reflexivity and Scholarly Production."

Lauren Berlant, Ph.D.
University of Chicago

Lauren Berlant is Graduate Chair and Professor of English, Gender Studies and of the Humanities, and Director of the Center for Gender Studies, at the University of Chicago. She is one of the leading voices in current debates over citizenship, national identity, and queer theory. She has completed two-thirds of a trilogy on national sentimentality: The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life (Chicago, 1991) and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Duke, 1997). She has recently edited a special issue of Critical Inquiry called “Intimacy” (Winter 1998), which won the Best Special Issue prize of the American Society of Publishers. “Intimacy” was later expanded into a book (Chicago, 2000). She is also editor, with Lisa Duggan, of a book on the Clinton scandals, titled Our Monica, Ourselves (NYUP, 2001). Her current work, The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture, focuses on the centrality of sentimental modes of address to subaltern public sphere building in the U.S. 20th century, taking “women’s culture” as its central case. Parts of this argument include "Pax Americana: The Case of Show Boat," in Institutions of the Novel (1997); and "National Brands/National Body: Imitation of Life," in The Phantom Public Sphere (1993). She is also the Co-Editor of Critical Inquiry, Associate Editor of Public Culture, and on the editorial board of Cultural Studies<—>Critical Methodologies. Her 1993 essay "The Queen of America goes to Washington City (Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Anita Hill)" won the Norman Foerster Award for best essay of the year in American Literature.

C.L. Cole, Ph.D., Ph.D.
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

CL Cole is Associate Professor of Kinesiology, Women’s Studies, Sociology, and the Afro American Studies and Research Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is widely considered one of the leading figures in the Sport & Cultural Studies movement, serving as editor of the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and having published widely on feminist cultural studies, Nike, Inc., Michael Jordan, the National Basketball Association, and popular culture. Currently, she is completing a book on national popular culture, sport, and embodied deviance in post-WWII America, and is the editor of the forthcoming anthologies Corporate Nationalism(s): Sport, Cultural Identity & Transnational Marketing (with David L. Andrews and Michael Silk, Berg Press) and Exercising Power: The Athletic Body in Public Space (with Grant Farred). She is also co-editor of the book series 'Sport, Culture & Social Relations' (SUNY Press), and serves on the editorial board of Cultural Studies<—>Critical Methodologies and the advisory board of GLQ.

Christopher Dunbar, Ph.D.
Michigan State University

Dr. Dunbar is an Assistant Professor in Educational Administration at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. His research has focused on alternative education for students who have been unable to succeed in traditional public schools. He has authored scholarly journal articles and studies. He has also presented his research at several professional conferences. His book Alternative Schooling For African American Youth (Peter Lang Publishers,2001) examines an alternative school designated for students perceived as disruptive. His current research examines the intersection between school choice and educational opportunities for disruptive students, zero tolerance policy and its impact on school administrators. He currently teaches courses on research inquiries, organizational theory, and the intersection of schools, families and communities.

Joe L. Kincheloe, Ph.D.
City University of New York Graduate Center

Joe L. Kincheloe is Professor of Education and deputy executive officer at the CUNY Graduate Center Urban Education Doctoral program. He was the Belle Zeller Chair for Public Policy and Administration at Brooklyn College. Kincheloe is the author and editor of over thirty books and hundreds of articles. His areas of research involve urban education, research bricolage, critical pedagogy, cultural studies, school standards, and their relation to social justice. His recent books include: Critical Pedagogy: A Primer (2004), Multiple Intelligences Reconsidered (ed. 2004), 19 Urban Questions: Teaching in the City (ed. 2004), Teachers as Researchers: Qualitative Paths to Empowerment (2nd ed. 2003), The Sign of the Burger: McDonald's and the Culture of Power (2002) and Rigour and Complexity in Educational Research: Conceptualizing the Bricolage (forthcoming in fall, 2004). Kincheloe is an internationally-known speaker and his work has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and German.

Peter McLaren, Ph.D.
University of California, Los Angeles

Peter McLaren is Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, at the University of California, Los Angeles. He also served as Director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies, and held the title of Renowned Scholar-in-Residence at Miami University before being recruited by UCLA in 1993. He is the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of approximately forty books and monographs. Several hundred of his articles, chapters, interviews, reviews, commentaries and columns have appeared in dozens of scholarly journals and professional magazines since the publication of his first book, Cries from the Corridor, in 1980. This book was one of Canada's top-selling non-fiction books of the year and consistently appeared on Canada’s bestseller lists. He is the co-editor of two books on the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire (Routledge, 1993, 1994). His most recent books include Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory (with Dave Hill, Mike Cole, and Glenn Rikowski), Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millenium (Westview Press, 1997); Counternarratives (Routledge, 1997, with Henry Giroux, Colin Lankshear and Mike Peters), and Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture (Routledge, 1995). He is also author of Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Longman) which is now in its fourth edition (2002 Allyn & Bacon). He lectures regularly throughout Latin America and Europe. His works have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Finnish, German, Polish, Hebrew, and French. Professor McLaren is the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award presented by Chapman University, California, April 2002.

Toby Miller, Ph.D.
New York University

Toby Miller is Professor of Cultural Studies and Cultural Policy at New York University. His work focuses on conceptual questions concerning issues of citizenship, democracy, nationhood, globalization, truth, and fiction. He is the author of The Well-Tempered Self: Citizenship, Culture, and the Postmodern Subject (1993), Contemporary Australian Television (1994, with Stuart Cunningham), The Avengers (1997), Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media (1998), Popular Culture and Everyday Life (1998, with Alex McHoul), SportCult (1999, ed. with Randy Martin), A Companion to Film Theory (1998, ed. Robert Stam), Film and Theory: An Anthology (2000, ed. with Robert Stam), Globalization and Sport: Playing the World (with Geoff Lawrence, Jim McKay, and David Rowe), SportSex (2002), A Companion to Cultural Studies (ed. 2001), and Global Hollywood (2002, ed. with Nitin Govil, John McMurria, and Richard Maxwell). He is past editor of the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and is co-editor of Social Text. He has previously worked as a research officer with the Australian Senate and as an announcer and cultural commentator for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Paula Saukko, Ph.D.
University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Paula Saukko is a Research Fellow at the ESRC-Centre for Genomics in Society (Egenis) at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom. She is the author of Doing Research in Cultural Studies: An Introduction to Classical and New Methodological Approaches (Sage, 2003). She is also writing a book on the historical, social and lived dimensions of the diagnostic discourse of anorexia. She is currently studying the complex personal, clinical and social issues involved in testing for genetic susceptibilities to common diseases. She is a member of the editorial boards of Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies and Kulttuuritutkimus and co-editor (with C. McCarthy et al.) of Sound Identities (Lang, 1999).

Keyan G. Tomaselli, Ph.D.
University of Natal, Durban, South Africa

Keyan G. Tomaselli is Chair Professor and Director of Graduate Programme for Culture, Communication, and Media Studies at the University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. He has written extensively on critical methodologies, cinema, and various aspects of South African culture, and has conducted contract research for both the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). A former Fullbright Research Scholar (1990-91), Professor Tomaselli received the KWANZAA Award for his book The Cinema of Apartheid: Race and Class in South African Cinema (Lake View Press, Chicago, 1998). Other publications include: Media, Democracy and Renewal in South Africa (IAP, 2001); Appropriating Images: The Semiotics of Visual Representation (Denmark: Intervention Press, 1996/1999); The Alternative Press in South Africa (1991, 2002); Broadcasting in South Africa (1989, 2002) and The Press in South Africa (1987, all published by James Currey, London); Myth, Race and Power: South Africans Imaged on Film and TV (1986) and Rethinking Culture (Anthropos, Cape Town, 1988, 1989); and The Cinema of Apartheid (Lake View Press and Routledge, 1988, 1989). He is the Editor of Critical Arts: A Journal of South/North Cultural and Media Studies, and is the Series Editor for "Critical Studies on African Culture and Media" (International Academic Publishers).

Mary E. Weems, Ph.D.
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio

Mary E. Weems is an educator, a performer, a poet, a dramatist, and a theorist of the imagination-intellect. She currently is a Visiting Professor at Ohio University in Athens, in the Education department of Cultural Studies. She has published three collections of poetry, White, Blackeyed, and Fembles, and has just published a book titled Public Education and the Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth (2003, Peter Lang). Her work has also appeared in Cultural Studies<—>Critical Methodologies, Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Xcp Cultural Poetics, and Futures of Education. One reviewer of her latest book noted that "Not since [James] Baldwin in Fire Next Time has a public intellectual spoken so forcefully about the contradictions of experience and existence in urban life and the educational and cultural lessons that we have chosen to ignore".