About

Karen Leigh Tongson

Assistant Professor of English and Gender Studies

Contact Information
E-mail: tongson@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-2817
Office: THH 402K

LINKS
Oh! Industry
Review for IJOC (International Journal of Communication)
Records y Recuerdos Events for VISIONS & VOICES
Gender Studies Faculty Profile
 

Biographical Sketch
Professor Karen Tongson joined the USC faculty in English and Gender Studies in fall 2005. Before coming to USC, Tongson held a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship in Literature at UC San Diego, and a UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) Residential Research Fellowship at UC Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley. Tongson's work on popular culture, queer studies, performance, music and literature has appeared in such journals as Social Text, GLQ, Nineteenth-Century Literature, Novel: A Forum on Fiction, and The International Journal of Communication, as well as in the anthologies Queering the Popular Pitch (Routledge), and The Blackwell Companion to LGBTQ Studies (eds. Haggerty and McGarry). She is currently writing a book, titled RELOCATIONS: Queer of Color Suburban Imaginaries, which will be part of the New York University Press "Sexual Cultures" Series edited by Jose Esteban Munoz and Ann Pellegrini. Professor Tongson is also a co-founder and regular contributor to the "culture industry" webzine OH! INDUSTRY (http://www.ohindustry.com) The digressions, scraps and ephemeral archives that inform her book project can be found on The INLAND EMPEROR (http://theinlandemperor.blogspot.com).
 

Education
B.A. English, University of California, Los Angeles, 1995
Ph.D. English, University of California, Berkeley, 2003
 

Postdoctoral Training
Residential Research Fellow, University of California Humanities Research Institute (UC Irvine), 01/01/2004-07/01/2004  
President's Postdoctoral Fellow in Literature (UCSD), University of California , 06/01/2003-05/30/2005  
 

Description of Research

Research Specialties
Queer & Gender Studies; Minority Discourse; Cultural Studies; Popular Culture (Pop Music, TV, Entertainment & Media Cultures); Performance; Suburban Studies; Los Angeles & the Southern California Region; Contemporary Literature; 19th-Century British Literature; Theory; Aesthetics
 

Affiliations with Research Centers, Labs, and Other Institutions
University of California Humanities Research Institute,http://flatiron.sdsc.edu/projects/uchri/main.php?page_id=2
 

Conferences and Other Presentations

Conference Presentations
"Thriller in Cebu and Other Intimate Reenactments", Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Talk/Oral Presentation, Refereed Paper, San Francisco, CA, Modern Language Association (MLA), Fall 2008   
"Suburbs: A Listening Party", Lecture/Seminar, Paper, Hollywood, CA, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Invited, Spring 2008   
"'Thriller in Cebu' and Intimate Re-enactments", ASA: American Studies Association Annual Conference, Talk/Oral Presentation, Refereed , Philadelphia, PA, American Studies Association, Fall 2007   
"Incidental Suburbanisms in Pop Music and Queer Theory", PSI 13, Performance Studies International Annual Conference , Talk/Oral Presentation, , New York, NY, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Fall 2007   
"Inland Emperors", Disjunctions Interdisciplinary Conference, Keynote, , Riverside, CA, University of California, Riverside, Invited, Spring 2007   
"Love Among the Ruins: Butch Intimacies After Gentrification", Sager Symposium, Keynote, , Swarthmore College, Invited, Spring 2007   
"No Alternative", After CBGB, Now What?: Gender, Sexuality and the Future of Subculture, Plenary , , New York, NY, New York University, Invited, Spring 2007   
"Relocations: Queer of Color Suburban Imaginaries", Historicism, Homonormativity and Queer Political Formations Symposium, Keynote, , Santa Cruz, CA, University of California, Santa Cruz, Invited, Spring 2007   
"Suburban Soundscapes: Audio Archives of the Suburban Dykeaspora", Experience Music Project Pop Music Conference, Refereed , Seattle, WA, Experience Music Project, Spring 2007   
"Take Me Out Tonight: The Butchlalis de Panochtitlan Reclaim ‘Lesser Los Angeles’", ASA, American Studies Association Annual Conference, Talk/Oral Presentation, Refereed , Oakland, CA, American Studies Association, Fall 2006   
 

Other Presentations
"Revoluciones Per Minute: A Listening Party Featuring Punk, New Wave and Queer Noise from East L.A.", Visions & Voices, Popular Music Project at The Norman Lear Center, USC Provost's Arts and Humanities Initiative, Center for Feminist Research, USC-Los Angeles, CA, Fall 2007   
""Contact, Creativity and Klub Fantasy: Butch Intimacies in ‘Lesser Los Angeles'", Invited Presentation, English, Gender Studies, Asian-American Studies, Ethnic and American Studies Departments, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Spring 2007   
"Beyond Queer Cosmopolitanism: The Suburbs, Race, and Sexual/Textual Politics", Women, Gender and Sexuality Seminar Series (Invited Scholar), Johns Hopkins University, The Johns Hopkins University-Baltimore, MD, Fall 2006   
"Curator", Critical Constellations: Race, Gender, Sexuality & Theory, Gender Studies Program, Center for Feminist Research, USC-Los Angeles, CA, Fall 2006   
 

Publications

Book
Tongson, K. Relocations: Queer of Color Suburban Imaginaries. New York, NY: New York University Press.
 

Book Chapter
Tongson, K. (2007). "The Light That Never Goes Out: Butch Intimacies in Lesser Los Angeles" in The Blackwell Companion to LGBT Studies. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tongson, K. (2006). Tickle Me Emo: Lesbian Balladeering, Straight Boy Emo and the Politics of Affect in QUEERING THE POPULAR PITCH. (Vol. Chapter 4). Routledge.
Tongson, K. (2005). Metronormativity and Gay Globalization. pp. p. 40-53. Berlin, Germany: Quer durch die Geisteswissenschaften: Perspektiven der Queer Theory/Querverlag.
Tongson, K. (2004). Thomas Carlyle and The Grain of the Voice. pp. p. 245-262. The Idea of Music in Victorian Fiction/Ashgate.
 

Book Review
Tongson, K. (2008). Review of Jasbir Puar's Terrorist Assemblages. Women and Performance.
Tongson, K. (2007). Review of Elana Levine's Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American Television. International Journal of Communication. pp. 79-80. International Journal of Communication (IJOC)
 

Essay
Tongson, K. (2004). White Men are Hysterical. pp. Number 4. GLQ.
 

Journal Article
Tongson, K. (2006). Lesbian Aesthetics, Aestheticizing Lesbianism. Nineteenth-Century Literature/University of California Press. Vol. Fall
Tongson, K. (2005). JJ Chinois' Oriental Express, Or How a Suburban Heartthrob Seduced Red America. Social Text/Duke University Press. Vol. Fall/Winter
Tongson, K. (2005). Sexuality in the City. Novel: A Forum on Fiction/Brown University Press. Vol. NA
Tongson, K. (2001). The Transnational Aesthetics of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies. Repercussions: Critical and Alternative Viewpoints on Music and Scholarship/University of California Press. Vol. NA
Tongson, K. (1996). The Nether World of Neither World: Hybridization in the Literature of Wendy Rose. American Indian Culture and Research Journal/University of California Press. Vol. NA
 

Multimedia Scholarship and Creative Works
Pop Culture Webzine, OH! INDUSTRY (http://www.ohindustry.com) is a collaboration with Christine Bacareza Balance (UC Irvine) and Alexandra Vazquez (Princeton University). This web magazine/blog offers monthly volumes featuring new reviews and cultural commentary on pop music, tv, film, new media, performance, fads, fashion and politics., 11/01/2007-  
Producer, The Barber of East L.A. and a Hector Sil, Producing and planning the premiere of "The Barber of East L.A." (a play by the Butchlalis de Panochtitlan), and a retrospective exhibit of Hector Silva's work at ONE., Spring 2008   
 
 

Service to the Profession

Conferences Organized
Organizer, A Freestyle Symposium, University of Southern California, A one-day symposium on the pop music genre "Freestyle" (Expose, Jocelyn Enriquez, Lisa Lisa & The Cult Jam, etc.) featuring scholars Alexandra Vazquez (Yale), Christine Bacareza Balance (Vassar), Joon Oluchi Lee (RISD) and L.A. Times Pop Music critic, Ann Powers., Fall 2006   
 

Professional Memberships
Performance Studies International, 11/08/2007-  
American Studies Association, 2003-  
American Comparative Literature Association, 2001-  
Modern Language Association, 1996-  
 
 
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