Scarlett L. Hester, Ph.D. Statement of Research My Research Intersects
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Scarlett L. Hester, Ph.D. Statement of Research My research intersects with the fields of critical media studies and rhetoric, critical race studies, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Specifically, I interrogate how whiteness operates as an apparatus of discipline and power through mediated contexts and cultures. In my work, I utilize a critical/cultural lens to approach notions of whiteness, Black feminist thought, and intersectionality. I model my work on critical race and feminist scholarship that understands the presence and invisibility of power. With that in mind, my research aims to question how matrices of oppression work to render marginalized identities visible and invisible. Given these commitments, my scholarship views writing as a political practice, gears toward social justice, and is concerned with the discursive areas of gender, race, and sexuality. As a critical scholar, my research centers important cultural work that combines notions of the body with race, gender, and sexuality as a means to critique structural power and inequality. My current research agenda focuses specifically on sports culture as an apparatus of surveillance and discipline. Methodologically, my research crosses the boundaries between rhetoric and media studies and I often use critical rhetorical methodology to analyze mediated texts. I am committed to interrogating the implications of race and racism. In an essay forthcoming in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, I examine the controversy surrounding NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick through the lens of monstrosity and Elizabeth Young’s Black Frankenstein. As I argue, while sports and political media deem Kaepernick’s form of protest monstrous, he is able to utilize monstrosity to complicate his black masculinity. The racist implications of being framed as a cultural monster create the opportunity for Kaepernick to harness his monstrous persona, revolt against his creator (the NFL), and advocate for social justice. Further, in an essay that was revised and resubmitted to the Yearbook of Women’s History’s special issue titled, “Building Bodies: Gendered Sport and Transnational Movements,” I examine Ronda Rousey, the first female fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In it, I analyze episodes of the UFC’s YouTube series, “Embedded,” and argue Ronda Rousey and the UFC function as a white neocolonial enterprise. Most notable are the ways Rousey and by extension the UFC instill the necessity for whiteness to prevail to benefit other female fighters and the UFC as a whole. I trace the history of the UFC and theorize how both the organization and Rousey operate as practitioners of white neocolonial discipline and control, especially through Rousey’s match versus Brazilian fighter, Bethe Correia. Rousey and the UFC present a softer form of neocolonialism because they assert the sacrifice of Correia’s non-white body is necessary for the growth of the women’s division of the UFC. Currently, I am working on book project that stems from my dissertation. The manuscript, which I conditionally title, “Resisting Racial Bounds: Disciplinary Whiteness & Professional Sports Culture” is intended for the Intersectional Rhetorics series at The Ohio State University Press edited by Dr. Karma Chavez. I center dark sousveillance and argue the visibility of athletes such as Serena Williams, LeBron James, and Colin Kaepernick provides a platform to control the consumption and commodification of their blackness. Further, I contend professional athletes are placed in a unique paradox where they must grapple with how their bodies are gendered and racially coded both as athletes and advocates for social justice. I illustrate my argument through an analysis of the partnership between these athletes and the Nike corporation via commercials and print advertisements. Additionally, for each athlete I include mediated texts such as the HBO docuseries, Being Serena and The Shop as well as discourse primarily found in sports media outlets like ESPN and The Undefeated. While professional sports have historically been politicized, I argue the temporality of these particular athletes in correlation with social movements like #BlackLivesMatter create the opportunity to re-claim both their bodies and voices while redefining what it means to be visibly black in U.S. American culture. My future scholarship falls along two lines. My second book project aims to further trace the history of U.S. American women’s participation in martial arts and theorize how organizations like the UFC and WWE present a complicated and nuanced understanding of intersectional feminist politics. While a breadth of historical research on women and martial arts exist, I argue the women who participate in the UFC and WWE embody and enact an alternative mode of intersectional Millennial feminist politic. I argue the participation in neo-liberal organizations like the UFC and WWE flatten the historical complexity of race, class, and nation that is at the foundation of martial arts. However, it is the very notions of race, class, and nation that provide these women the opportunity to be included in such organizations. By first historicizing women’s presence in martial arts and then conducting a critical media and rhetorical analysis of texts like Total Divas and “Embedded,” the project serves to highlight the neocolonial nature of U.S. American professional sport culture through the guise of female empowerment. My second line of research interrogates the politics of visibility/invisibility and opacity/transparency in an attempt to queer surveillance theory. Currently, I am working on a manuscript about Brittney Griner’s queer identity and how that impacted her ability to enter the WNBA and continues to dictate how she manages mediated discourse about her personal life. I argue because Griner is an openly gay athlete, she capitalizes upon her sexuality as a way to surpass the confines of professional sports culture. However, while Griner’s rhetoric embraces her embodiment of queerness, she must originally obfuscate her race in order to render her sexuality as acceptable within the whiteness of professional sport culture. Yet, after contending with her sexuality, blackness, and domestic abuse charges, I argue Griner fully embodies notions of relationality. Griner does not only redefine what it means to be a woman who embraces female masculinity, but she further problematizes her embodiment by also enfolding her identity as a black queer woman. Overall, my research focuses on the intersections of critical mediated discourse, critical rhetoric, and the politics of intersectionality. It highlights the ways U.S. American professional sports culture institutionalizes and normalizes issues of inequality in an arena that is often presumed to be a depoliticized space. I plan to expand my research to investigate how sport bodies, both individual athletes and governing bodies, contribute to and are often the catalyst for social movements. Sport is a historically racialized and gendered space, which results in crucial moments and conversations of protest, mobilization, and change. For these reasons, it is imperative to keep a critical eye on professional sports culture and its continued impact on defining racial, gender, and sexuality politics. .