Bambi Haggins, Assistant Professor, Screen Arts & Cultures, and Director of Graduate Studies, 2000-

Areas of teaching/research specialization: Dr. Haggins is the television studies scholar for the Department of Screen Arts & Cultures. Her teaching and research interests include television history, representation of class, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality across media as well as fan and popular culture.

Bambi Haggins, the director of graduate studies and an associate professor of Screen Arts and Cultures. Her book, Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post Soul America examines the place of Black comedy as comedic social discourse in American polular consciousness (Rutgers UP, 2007). Haggins' current research includes examinations of "for us, by us" Black comedy and the significance of insider laughter and Jackass and new [idealized] constructions of masculinity (with Emily Chivers Yochim).

Publications:

"Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post Soul America " (Rutgers, UP 2007)

"HBO Comedy: At Home on the Cutting Edge" with Amanda D. Lotz in The Essential HBO Reader, G. Edgerton and JP Jones (Eds.) (forthcoming University of Kentucky Press, 2008)

"In Another Part of the Cultural Ghetto: A Telephile's Notes." Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. (Fall 2004)

"Regarding Black Audiences: Qualitative Approaches to Studying Black Media Consumption" with Catherine Squires in anthology in Black Audience Study, eds. Cleo Caldwell and James Jackson (forthcoming Routledge 2008)

"Identity, Globalization, Convergence: Ethnic Notions and National Identity in the Age of Television and Digital, co-editor (with John Caldwell) and contributor, collection of essays in the age of digital (publisher TBA).

"Why Beulah and Andy Still Play: Minstrelsy in the New Millenium" in the second of two special issues on "Globalism, Convergence and Identity," of Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures.

"There's No Place Like Home: African American Identity, The Situation Comedy and The American Dream" in "Ideologies" issue of Velvet Light Trap (Issue 43).

"Transforming the Mythos: Homefront Viewers Rethink The American Dream" in Emergencies: Journal for the Study of Media & Composite Cultures (May, 1999).

Lectures:

"Television, the American Dream, and Racial Identity Formation" presented at College Colloquium at Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, MI. (2006)

“Dancing Like There's Nobody Watching: Chappelle's Show , De Facto Crossover & the Post Network Era” presented “2004 Television History Symposium” at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

“Miscegenation in Manhattan: Interracial Romance in Post (?) Racial America” presented at “Windows and Mirrors: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on American Popular Culture at Home and Abroad” at University of Toronto, Canada. (2004)

Courses taught: SAC 365: Race & Ethnicity in American TV ; SAC 366: Television Situation Comedy ; FV 366: Fan Cultures & Popular Media ; SAC 355: Television History.