Visiting Scholars

Laura Strait
  • 2020-21 resident fellow: Laura E. Strait is a recent PhD in Media Studies at the University of Oregon's School of Journalism and Communication. Her education includes a BA in Cultural Studies (Columbia College Chicago), and an MS in Media Studies (Univ. of Oregon). Her research interests broadly include technology and gaming, social movements in the digital age, and race and gender issues on social media. Her dissertation traces the genealogy of pro-life feminism, its contemporary relationship to liberal feminism, and the varied forms of technologies employed by both groups to build and reinforce issue communities. Laura was the CSWS Jane Grant Dissertation Fellow in 2018, and remains affiliated with the Center and the University of Oregon. Her relevant publications include “Out on Proudmoore: Climate Change on an MMO,” Queerness in Play, Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2018, 261-272; and a book review, “Using Media for Social Innovation,” Critical Studies in Media Communication, Podkalicka and Rennie, April, 2019.
V Varun ChaudhryLaura Strait
  • 2018-19 pro-tem research assistant: V Varun Chaudhry is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University. His work focuses on the institutionalization of “transgender” in nonprofit and funding agencies through ethnographic research in Philadelphia, PA. V’s research has been generously supported by the Social Science Research Council, The Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Sexualities Project at Northwestern, and the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon. His writing appears or is forthcoming in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Signs: Journal of Women and Culture in Society, American Anthropologist, and Critical Inquiry. See also: "When it comes to gender identity, inclusion is more than using the right pronoun"
 
  • Senior Courtesy Research Associate: Cheris Kramarae is a former professor, and director of women’s studies, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.