UCHRI Welcomes Brittany Turner, Graduate Student Researcher

I am a second-year PhD student in Film and Media Studies at UC Irvine with interests in global anti-colonial cinemas, Black visual cultures and counter-publics, and community-based creative labor. My research traces a genealogy of militant, participatory filmmaking practice to consider the aims and anti-colonial and postcolonial preoccupations of contemporary filmmakers in the Global South.

Prior to entering my doctoral program, I received an MFA in Writing for the Performing Arts from UC Riverside, and a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University. My research, which combines theory and practice-based approaches, is informed by several years of experience working in the film industry as a marketer, development executive, and creative producer. I was formerly a social media strategist at The Ellen Show, Disney’s Maker Studios, and Adaptive Studios, a development producer at digital-first studio Portal A, and a freelance creative producer.

I have recently joined UCHRI as a Graduate Student Researcher to help manage media, newsletter, and website messaging, as well as assist with online and in-person event programming. As I often work with popular media forms, I am passionate about translating humanities research to the broader public, and look forward to supporting UCHRI’s communications strategy in pursuit of that mission.

In my free time, I enjoy listening to and curating music, traveling, entertaining my cat, and watching an absurd amount of television.