Joan Miller

Joan Miller

All But Dissertation

Joan Miller is a doctoral candidate in communication at USC Annenberg and a transmedia artist with a broadly interdisciplinary approach. Miller’s work focuses on empathy at the intersection of media fandom and politics. Her dissertation, tentatively titled “The Use of Feeling”, explores the ways in which empathy and pathos govern our behavior both in relation to our fandom and to our communities at large. Miller is especially interested in themes of kinship, empathic communication, and anti-colonialist approaches to producing media scholarship. Currently, her attention is focused on theorizing and prototyping a methodology of fandom studies inspired by Bardic and Griotic traditions of the values and necessities for community storytelling.