College of Arts and Sciences
Women's Studies Faculty
Janell Hobson

Janell Hobson
Associate Professor

Social Science 344
518-442-5575
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Janell Hobson is Associate Professor and the current Graduate Director of
Women's Studies at the University at Albany. She joined the core faculty shortly after receiving her Ph.D. in Women's Studies at Emory University. Hobson has since devoted her research, teaching, and service to multiracial and transnational feminist issues in the discipline.

Hobson is the author of Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular
Culture
and is co-editing an anthology, with Ime A. S. Kerlee, titled Are
All the Women Still White? Globalizing Women's Studies. Hobson's research
involves an oral history project on women in the Anglophone Caribbean
(specifically Nevis and its diaspora). She is also currently at work on a
second book project exploring world history narratives and black women's
representations in historical and globalized discourses on race and
gender. Overall, Hobson uses a transnational lens to highlight women's
iconography and experiences in global or black diasporic perspective.

Apart from teaching diverse courses on intersections of race, class,
gender, media, popular culture, and feminist theory, Hobson co-advises
with Vivien Ng the undergraduate e-journal, transcending silence..., and
supervises the annual Women's Studies Student Conference."

EDUCATION

  • Ph.D., Emory University (2001)
  • M.A., Teachers College, Columbia University (1995)
  • A.B., University of Georgia (1994)

GRADUATE COURSES

  • Feminist Theory
  • Research Seminar
  • Feminist Pedagogy
  • Race, Gender, and Global Popular Culture
  • Black Diasporas, Feminisms, and Sexual Politics

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

  • Classism, Racism, and Sexism
  • Feminist Social and Political Thought
  • Women and the Media
  • Electronic Publishing in Women's Studies
  • Gender and Nation in World Cinema
  • Narratives and Counter-narratives

PUBLICATIONS

BOOK

Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture (New York: Routledge, 2005).

ARTICLES

"Digital Whiteness, Primitive Blackness: Racializing the 'Digital Divide' in Film and Art." Feminist Media Studies 8: 2 (June 2008)" 111-126.

"Everybody's Protest Song: Music as Social Protest in the Performances of Marian Anderson and Billie Holiday." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Winter 2008): 443-448.

"The Personal is Global: Teaching Global Feminist Consciousness." Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy (Fall 2006): 96-104 .

"The 'Batty' Politic: Toward an Aesthetic of the Black Female Body." Hypatia 18: 4 (Fall/Winter 2003): 87-105.

"Viewing in the Dark: Toward a Black Feminist Approach to Film." Women's Studies Quarterly 30: 1 & 2 (Spring/Summer 2002): 45-59.

BOOK CHAPTERS

"Militarizing Women in Film: Toward a Cinematic Framing of War and
Terror." In Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization, 367-387. Barbara Sutton, Sandra Morgen, and Julie Novkov, eds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

"Searching for Janet in Cyberspace: Race, Gender, and the Interface of
Technology." In Techknowledgies: New Imaginaries in Humanities, Arts, and Techno-sciences. Mary Valentis, ed. London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.

EDITED VOLUME

"Representin': Women, Hip Hop, and Popular Music," special issue for Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 8: 2 (2008), guest co-edited with R. Dianne Bartlow.

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