Susana Loza

Associate Professor of Critical Race, Gender, and Media Studies
Susana Loza
Contact Susana

Mail Code HA
Susana Loza
Franklin Patterson Hall G12
413.549.4600

Susana Loza received her B.A. degrees in political science and psychology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in comparative ethnic studies from the University of California at Berkeley.

She teaches cultural studies, critical race theory, film and media studies, popular music, feminist theory, and ethnic studies. Her research interests include the social construction of race and sex in speculative media; power, privilege, and cultural appropriation; gender and ethnic performativity in digital spaces; the politics of sampling and remixing; colonial cosplay in steampunk; the activist potential of social media; and the post-racial turn in popular culture.

Professor Loza’s publications include “Imperial Fictions: Doctor Who, Post-Racial Slavery, and Other Liberal Humanist Fantasies,” “Steampunk Style and the After-Life of Empire,” “Hashtag Feminism, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and the Other #FemFuture,” “Playing Alien in Post-Racial Times,” “Samples of the Past: Performative Nostalgia, Illicit Sounds, and Cultural Transformation in Latin House Music,” “Sampling (Hetero)sexuality: Diva-ness and Discipline in Electronic Dance Music,” “Vampires, Queers, and Other Monsters: Against the Homonormativity of True Blood,” and “Orientalism and Film Noir: Subjective Sins and Othered Desires.”

Her current project, Speculative Imperialisms: Monstrosity and Masquerade in Post-Racial Times (Lexington Books, 2017), explores the resurgence of racial masquerade in science fiction, horror, and fantasy and contemplates the fundamental, albeit changing, role that ethnic simulation plays in American and British cultures in a putatively post-racial and post-colonial era.

Recent and Upcoming Courses

  • In the wake of Obama's historic presidency, the American media triumphantly declared that we are living in post-racial times. But is race dead? Are we color-blind? If so, how do we explain the resurgence of white supremacy during and after the Trump presidency? Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of Ethnic Studies, Critical Race Theory, Media Studies, US Third World Feminism, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Political Philosophy, and Post-Colonial Theory, this course will investigate how "race" continues to shape American society in the post-civil rights era. Topics to be covered include: the social construction of race, racial formation, panethnicity, class-based and gendered racialization, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, double-consciousness, colonialism, essentialism, institutional racism, commodification of race/ethnicity, identity politics, colorblind ideology, cultural appropriation, resistance, and citizenship. Particular attention will be paid to affirmative action, immigration, hate speech, hate crimes, reparations, racial profiling, and the reactionary rise of the right. This course is reading-, writing-, and theory-intensive Keywords:Government, Legal Studies, Politics, Sociology, Critical Race Theory The content of this course deals with issues of race and power

  • This seminar delves into the dynamics, debates, and desires that drive pop fandom. In this class, we ask: What is fan culture? Does it build community? Are fans different from other consumers? What are the ethics and politics of fandom? What are the aesthetic, social, and legal ramifications of fan-produced forms such as mash-ups, remixes, youtube videos, and fanfic/slash that borrow, customize, and reinterpret pop commodities? How do such textual appropriations call into question the boundaries between high and low, production and consumption, intellectual property and fair use? Do fan-produced forms challenge or reinforce Romantic notions of authorship and authenticity? Particular attention will be paid to: the queering of heterosexist pop texts; the racialized and sexualized construction of masculinity and femininity; the politics of sampling, remixing, and mashing; and the role of the Internet, blogs, and social networking technologies in fan culture. This course is reading-, writing-, and theory-intensive Keywords:Cultural Studies, Fandom Studies, Legal Studies, Internet Studies, Popular Music

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  • Since its founding, the US has closely regulated the bodies of Others and punished those that rebel against these socially-constructed designations. Utilizing an interdisciplinary amalgam of Critical Race Theory, Sexuality Studies, Queer Theory, Media Studies, Sociology, American Studies, Performance Studies, and Feminist Theory, this course will explore how the state, the media, and civilian institutions police the boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality by pathologizing, criminalizing, and stigmatizing difference. We will also examine how the subjects burdened with these dangerous inscriptions evade and contest them through passing, performativity, and other forms of identity-based resistance. Special attention will be paid to the criminalization of cross-racial and same sex desire; the re-biologization of racial and sexual difference; the dehumanization of immigrants; the racialization of crime; the gendering of mental disorder; the rise of homonormativity; genetic surveillance; the biopolitics of reproduction; and the role of The Law in constructing and controlling deviant bodies. KEYWORDS:Critical Race Theory, Disability Studies, Queer Studies, Legal Studies, Sociology

  • Late capitalism, settler colonialism, and military imperialism have wrought catastrophic damage on our planet and its nonhuman ecologies. This course focuses on how speculative fictions and forms ? sonic, visual, and literary ? confront the legacies of imperialism, colonialism, and racism in order to imagine, envision, and enact more sustainable and just futures. Through a transdisciplinary examination of science fiction, cinematic fantasies, and popular music, this course contemplates how artists and thinkers reimagine possibilities of resistance, worldmaking, and kinship amid climate catastrophe. Questions to be considered include: what happens when we put race, gender, sexuality, and disability at the core of imagining new environmental justices? How do BIPOC/queer/disabled writers, musicians, and artists transform hegemonic genres into tools of decolonization? What do their speculative productions reveal about the complex relationships between marginalized bodies, history, and technology? How do such imaginings disrupt and dismantle white supremacy, settler colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy? KEYWORDS: Speculative Fiction, Afrofuturism, Popular Music, Alternate History, Film Studies

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