About

• Academic Director, Gender & Sexuality Studies
• Co-Founder and Co-Director, Feminist Border Arts
• Personal Website
• Pronouns She & They

Meet Dr. W: Why Comics (Teaching thorugh Digital Storytelling)

Education

Ph.D. English (Critical Theory and Cultural Studies with a Graduate Concentration in Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies), 2010 (Purdue University); M.A. English (Literary Studies), 2001 (Purdue University); B.A. English and Fine Art, 1999 (Pacific Union College)

Research & Teaching Areas

Vietnamese American Literature and Cultural Production; Asian American Literary and Cultural Production; Critical Theory (feminist/queer/Asian American/ecofeminism); Food Studies; Cultural Studies (Popular Culture, Film Studies, Visual Culture, Graphic Narrative); Research-Creation; Digital Pedagogies; Digital Short Film & New Media Art Curation (feminist, queer, transnational public cultures - video art, avant garde cinema, experimental film)

Creative Practice

Cartoonist/Comics Artist, Illustrator, Zine Maker

Time-based Media Arts (video art & short filmmaking, music production, mixed media collage & design); Queer & Feminist Aesthetics & Praxis; Public and Digital Humanities 

Courses

• Introduction to Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Representing Women’s Across Cultures
• Sex, Gender, and the Body
• Feminist Food Studies
• Gender and Graphic Narrative
• Gender and Popular Culture
• Gender and Horror
• Gender, Race, and Film
• Sp Topics

Select Publications

“Queering Online Pedagogies in Gender and Sexuality Studies.” Co-authored with M. Catherine Jonet. in Designing Intersectional Online Education: Critical Teaching and Learning Practices. Eds. Xeturah M. Woodley and Mary Rice. Routledge. 2022.

“Intimacies and Animacies: Queer Ecologies in Asian American Literature” in Asian American Literature in Transition. Eds. Betsy Huang and Victor Mendoza. Cambridge University Press. 2021.

“Free and Open to the Public: Film Festival Curation as Public Scholarship.” Co-authored with M. Catherine Jonet. MLA Profession (Spring 2019).

“Queering Manga: Eating Queerly in12 Days.” in Drawing New Color Lines: Transnational Asian American Graphic Narratives. Ed. Monica Chiu. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 2015.  

“Gender, Race, and an Epistemology of the Abattoir in My Year of Meats.” Feminist Studies 40.2 (2014): 244-272.

Co-founder & Co-Director

Feminist Border Arts (an arts-humanities research-creation collaboration and platform); Feminist Border Arts Film Festival (curated feminist, LGBTQIA+, and transnational digital film shorts)

Select Filmmaking and Film Curation

“Road,” Digital Video, 2 minutes, color, sound, 2020. Official Selection, Basement Films: 30 Years of Undependent Media. Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM. July 15-October 22.

“Speak Near,” HD video, 3 minutes, color, sound, 2020. (invited) “FBAFF Retrospective in Feminisms,” 516 ARTS/Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, NM. October 2020.

Feminist Border Arts Film Festival: Retrospective in Feminisms, in collaboration with 516 ARTS “Feminisms” exhibition, and Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, NM. October 2020.

Comics

Excerpts from my graphic memoir project, An Imagined Genealogy 

"All At Once"

In honor of the historic 2023 Oscar wins of Everything Everywhere All At Once and for Women's History Month, Feminist Border Arts and the academic unit for Gender and Sexuality Studies at NMSU released Dr. Williams's comic "All At Once," a micro graphic narrative memoir combining popular culture and reflections on complex family relationships. As she Dr. W writes in the comic, no story in cinema has been her story; Everything Everywhere All At Once leaves her craving infinite possibility.

Select Filmmaking and Film Curation

“Road,” Digital Video, 2 minutes, color, sound, 2020. Official Selection, Basement Films: 30 Years of Undependent Media. Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM. July 15-October 22.

“Speak Near,” HD video, 3 minutes, color, sound, 2020. (invited) “FBAFF Retrospective in Feminisms,” 516 ARTS/Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, NM. October 2020.

Feminist Border Arts Film Festival: Retrospective in Feminisms, in collaboration with 516 ARTS “Feminisms” exhibition, and Guild Cinema, Albuquerque, NM. October 2020.