My teaching spans the areas of film and media studies and critical cultural communications, with a special focus on the history and theory of African American cultural production and media representation, television and digital media studies, and U.S. public and popular culture.

I am keenly aware of the importance of images in conveying messages about the broader social world. The realm of representation contributes to an understanding of our identity as we navigate through our daily lives. The power of images to shape our sense of self cannot be understated; as a teacher, I believe that exposure to the operations of such pervasive influence is crucial to the development of a literacy in popular media platforms such as film, television, and the internet. By making strange what we take for granted in popular and media culture, i.e. the familiar, I hope to provide avenues for students to interrogate the logics of dominant representational modes. Critical awareness is produced when students are given the necessary tools to read images. Through classroom activities and graded assignments, as well as the encouragement of play between theory, method, and practice, my teaching is committed to training students in the ability to see differently.​

Photo Credit: Argenis Apolinario

The courses I have designed and taught include:

  • African American Media Visibility: Image, Culture, Crisis
  • Race, Media, Celebrity
  • African American Cinema
  • U.S. Television History
  • Understanding Television
  • Race, Class, and Gender in Media
  • Television, Race, and Civil Rights
  • The Ethics of Reality TV
  • Television Theory and Criticism
  • Global Television
  • Race, Gender, and Digital Media (graduate-level)