Jenn Brandt, Ph.D.

Dr. Jenn Brandt is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at California State University Dominguez Hills. Previously she was an assistant professor of English and director of Women’s and Gender Studies at High Point University. Brandt holds a PhD in English literature and a graduate certificate in women’s studies from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State University.  

Brandt’s research explores the relationship between contemporary narratives of identity and institutional structures of inequality. In examining narrative’s role in the maintenance and critique of ideology, her goal is to bring greater understanding to the ways individuals use stories—literary, cultural, digital, and visual—to make sense of the self in an increasingly globalized world. She is particularly interested in the ways in which politics shape and reflect contemporary culture. A well-respected scholar and teacher, Brandt has been asked to speak nationally at universities, museums, conferences, and community centers. Her work has appeared in a number of edited collections and academic journals, and she is the co-author of An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US: People, Power, and Politics (Bloomsbury 2018).

Dr. Brandt’s current research considers the relationship between cultural representation and digital media with a focus on the rhetorical situation of contemporary women writers and the figure of the feminist as a public intellectual.

Dr. Brandt is an active member of both the Popular Culture/American Culture Association and National Women’s Studies Association. In 2018 she was named an inaugural Wikipedia Fellow as part of Wiki Education’s partnership with the NWSA.

Recent Publications:

2018     An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US: People, Politics, and Power (co-authored with Callie Clare). New York: Bloomsbury.

2017     “Shuffling Toward Oblivion: The Long Walk of the Fat Body” (co-authored with Tony Kemerly). Fat Studies 6.3 (2017): 294 – 303.

2017     “Taste as Emotion: The Synesthetic Body in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the            Mouth.” south: a scholarly journal. 49.1 (2017): 38 – 57.

2017     “Claiming the Abortion Narrative: A Qualitative Exploration of Mainstream and Social Media Reflections on Abortion” (co-authored with Natalie Whaley, MD, MPH). Global Perspectives on Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Across the Lifecourse. Eds. Shonali Choudhury, Jennifer Toller Erausquin, and Mellissa Withers. New York: Springer, 2017. 159 – 171.

Click here for Dr. Brandt's full publication list.