The DOECL is excited to welcome Professor Daelena Tinnin-Gadson! Professor Tinnin-Gadson joins the ECL faculty as an Assistant Professor of Black Film Studies and African American Literature. She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in Media Studies with concentrations in Women and Gender Studies and African and African Diaspora Studies. She also holds an M.A. in Communication Studies with an emphasis in Communication and Culture from the University of Denver.
Currently, Professor Tinnin-Gadson is working on a project called “‘Down to the Pynk’: Haunting, Excess Flesh, and the Construction of Black Female Spectacle in Katori Hall’s P-Valley.” The project “looks at the show P-Valley as [an] illustrative example of Black feminist creative methodology and a generative media text that stages a visual and sonic intervention in how we imagine Blackness, subjectivity, and Black female iconography.”
In addition to her research, Professor Tinnin-Gadson is looking forward to working with students at UNC. Expressing her excitement about teaching, Professor Tinnin-Gadson is “most excited to work with undergraduate students and graduate students who are passionate or even curious about film studies, Black feminism, and all things popular culture.” She remembers her own experiences as a student and looks forward to teaching “classes that give that ‘lightbulb’ moment. I needed that as a student and I’m excited to be a part of that journey for UNC students.”
A fun fact about Professor Tinnin-Gadson is that she “love[s] horror as a genre and a genealogy of cultural production that tells us where we’ve been and what possibilities lie ahead.” She recently watched the TV show From and found it “fascinating and horrifying in the best way.”
Learn more about Professor Tinnin-Gadson here.
