Jules Wight

I am pleased to join the Gustavus community in the 2021-2022 academic year as a visiting instructor in Communication Studies. My teaching and research specializations focus on critical media studies in the specific areas of digital media, cyberwar, political communication, queer theory, gender studies, race and ethnicity in media, and poststructuralism.

In my teaching, I work to guide students to better understand their own media practices while reflexively and critically engaging with scholarship on media industries, narratives, policies, and production practices. Also informing my teaching are my professional experiences in photography and in different areas of strategic communication including marketing, advertising, and publication development. At the University of Minnesota where I completed coursework for my Ph.D., I taught a variety of communication courses covering topics in media literacy, race and ethnicity in media, media industry and globalization, reality television, visual media and art, public speaking, and media history. More recently, I worked directly with faculty at UMN to incorporate instructional technology into their course design, and I co-authored numerous instructional technology posts on teaching, lecturing, and active learning in online learning environments at the university.

As a transgender scholar, I am committed to exploring the margins of media theory and have published work on transgender identities and interpersonal communication, media theory, and social media. In addition, I have co-authored a book chapter and authored articles concerned with digital space, media and social justice, gender and communication, and cultural studies. My current research focuses on poststructural analyses of cyberwar as destructive communicative practices and the occurence of performative cyberwar events through news media.

Courses Taught