Susan Driver

I am interested in developing critical and creative ways of theorizing and practicing representations of gender and sexuality. My work strives to understand those areas of women’s social and historical experiences that have become marginalized within dominant scientific, popular and social policy discourses. My graduate project engaged with queer mothering, paying close attention to reflexive poetic acts of self-representation. I am continually challenged to try to interweave an intimate process of naming relations of nurturance, love and desire with social and political forms of recognition that encourage and respect cultural differences. My current research examines contemporary youth cultures with a particular focus on constructions of young women’s sexuality in mass media texts as well as grassroots responses that include the production of videos, e/zines, and live performance by and about young people. My approach is interdisciplinary as I draw upon many diverse fields of knowledge and styles of representation including written narratives, interactive storytelling, and visual images. I seek to articulate inclusive languages through which to understand the complex everyday worlds of youth in an increasingly commercialized and mass mediated environment.

Sample of supervised ComCult projects:

2020 - Brigid Savage; Major Research Paper: Horses in the Back: Negotiations of Black Identity Through Cowboy Symbolism in American Popular Culture

2020 - Danielle Collado; Major Research Paper: Girls Gotta Give Sex and Relationship Advice: Post-Feminism, Intimacy, and Self-Governance in Podcast Culture

2016 - Frank DeGregorio; Major Research Paper: Affective Potentialities of Queer GIFs on Tumblr

2016 - Christine Feraday; Thesis: For lack of a better word: neo-identities in non-cisgender, non-straight communities on Tumblr

2015 - Dominique Lauf; Major Research Paper: I Fluctuate Between Chubby and Curvy: Shame, Affect, and the Fat Body in The Mindy Project

2014 - Emilie Charlebois; Major Research Paper: Losers Winning: Identity, Status and Difference in Glee

2010 - Caitlin McKinney; Thesis: Making out on the Internet: Interpreting popular photographs on AfterEllen.com