Graduate Students

Zane Austin Willard

CV

Contact Information

Email
Office: CIS 3018

Website: www.zaneaustinwillard.me

biography

Zane Austin Willard is a critical cultural studies scholar working at the intersections of organizational communication and media studies. Zane’s research interests are in popular culture, political economy, and critical pedagogy with a focus on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality. Analyzing popular media and critiquing legal and political discourse, and reflecting on his own personal and professional experiences, Zane’s scholarship interrogates how LGBTQ+ communities resist hegemonic disparity in the ever increasingly mediated, digital, and surveilled current global neoliberal economy.

Zane’s scholarship has been published in Communication Teacher and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. He is currently working on projects about RuPaul’s Drag Race, The White Lotus, AIDS memory media, trans celebrities, legal discourse surrounding drag performers and transgender healthcare, and teaching critical issues in the current political economy. Committed to a critical praxis Zane extends his interests as a multimedia artist and communication professional. His film and photography work has been exhibited in gallery shows and film festivals in the U.S. and Canada. Additionally, Zane has over seven years of professional experience in learning and development, digital media production, event planning and production, and team management in higher education, health and wellness, promotional industries, and non-profit organizations.

Currently, Zane is a graduate teaching and research associate in the Department of Communication at USF, a graduate instructional assistant of communication education in USF’s College of Engineering, and he serves as the Editorial Assistant for the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication. He is in his second year as a Frederic Bastiat Fellow at the Mercatus Center for Social, Economic, and Political Thought, he is also an alumnus of the Mercatus Center’s Don Lavoie Fellowship. Professionally, he currently is on the Board of Directors for a Tampa Bay-based LGBTQ+ event production company and is active in the Tampa Bay Health and Wellness community with over five years of experience as a CrossFit Trainer. Formerly, he was the Audio/Visual Producer for a national LGBTQ+ health and wellness non-profit and Director of Marketing for a start-up non-profit advocating for LGBTQ+ youth. He holds a Master’s degree in Communication from USF and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Tampa with a triple major in Economics, Communication, and Film & Media Arts and minors in History and Cinema Studies.

Research areas

Critical/Cultural Studies, Organizational Communication, Media Studies, Surveillance, Visibility Politics, Public Policy, Popular Culture, Critical Pedagogy, LGBTQ+ Cultures

Advisor

Mahuya Pal