2021 Critical Studies Thesis Mentors

The current Critical Studies thesis projects focus on a wide range of topics including disability studies, cultural studies, media studies, film theory, literary criticism, eco-criticism, transgender theory, and speculative fiction.

This year's thesis mentors are:

Sara Bernstein

Sara Tatyana Bernstein, Ph.D. writes about and teaches fashion and cultural studies. Her fashion and cultural criticism publications include articles for Vox, BuzzFeed Reader, The Outline, Fashion, Style and Popular Culture Journal, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty, Dress, and several edited collections of scholarly essays. She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the University of California, Davis, and her M.A. in Visual Culture from New York University.

Sara is also the editor and co-founder of Dismantle Magazine: Fashion, Popular Culture, Social Change

Angela Catalano

Angela Catalano teaches courses on film history, film theory and criticism, horror films, and film festivals. Her research interests include surveillance and propaganda, maternal representations in horror films, and experimental animation. She is currently a Film Programmer for the True/False Film Festival. She received her Master of Arts in Cinema, Media, and Digital Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Cole Cohen

Cole Cohen is the author of the memoir Head Case (Henry Holt, 2015), which received a starred Kirkus review and was excerpted in Vogue. She has been a Yaddo Fellow and a finalist for the Bakeless and Association of Writers & Writing Programs Creative Nonfiction Prizes and is currently a featured contributor for Entropy. Her scholarly interests include the intersection of Performance Studies, Disability Studies, and the body. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California Institute of the Arts and has previously taught at Rutgers University and The New School for Social Research.

Meghan Drury

Meghan Drury is an instructor, musician, and popular culture scholar. She holds a PhD in American Studies from George Washington University and a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from UC Riverside. Her research focuses on intersections between popular music, identity, and sound studies.

Dana Ghazi

Dana Ghazi was born and raised in Damascus, Syria before moving to the United States in 2002. She studied English Literature and Gender and Sexuality Studies for her undergrads and has a Master of Arts degree in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies from Portland State University. Dana has worked with international programs focused on addressing major conflicts like the ones in Syria, Colombia and the Balkans and national programs focused on transforming structural violence, generational trauma and the role of the arts as a way for resistance and recovery during and post-conflict. Currently Dana works as an Arabic mental health counselor at the Intercultural Psychiatric Program with Oregon Health and Science University providing direct mental health services to refugees and victims of torture and war.

Raechel Anne Jolie

Raechel Anne Jolie received her PhD in Communication Studies with a minor in Gender & Sexuality Studies from the University of Minnesota. Her writing has been published in Teen Vogue, Bitch Magazine, In These Times, and more. Her critically acclaimed novel, Rust Belt Femme, is available through Belt Publishing.

Margaret Killjoy

Margaret Killjoy is an author and anarchist with a long history of itinerancy. She is the author of several novels and the Danielle Cain series for Tor.com Publishing. 

Sloane McNulty

Sloane McNulty (PhD American Studies – Rutgers) is an instructor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Their work is centered on assemblages of gender, ecology, and embodiment, while also intervening in narratives around genetic science, social media, and animal ethics. They are currently working on a book length manuscript entitled, “Viral Ethics: Media, Ecology, Debt,” as well as pursuing more extensive scholarship on the cultural deployment of parasitism, affective regimes of social media, and intersections of transgender rights and technology.

Jay Ponteri

Jay Ponteri directed the creative writing program at Marylhurst University from 2008-2018 and is the author of Darkmouth Inside Me and Wedlocked. He is the founder and director of the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing program at PNCA. The recipient of the 2013 Oregon Book Award and the Frank Waters Fellowship, Jay is also the founder of Show:Tell, The Workshop for Teen Artists and Writers. Jay serves as an instructor at Literary Arts, on the advisory board of the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) and on the board of Tavern Books, a poetry press.