Faculty
Diana Leon-Boys
Assistant Professor
Affiliated Department(s)
Assistant Professor, Institute for the Study of Latin American and the Caribbean &
Department of Women's & Gender Studies
CONTACT INFORMATION
Email
Office: CIS 3033
Website: https://www.dleonboys.com/
Dr. Leon-Boys (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida. Her research and teaching interests are in critical media and cultural studies, Latinx studies, and girlhood studies. Her work focuses on the global representation of girls of color in a post-network digital era against the backdrop of contemporary post-feminism and neoliberal frameworks.
Dr. Leon-Boys is a leader and developer of the subfield of Latina girls’ media studies. Her book Elena, Princesa of the Periphery: Disney’s Flexible Latina Girl, combines a critique of postfeminism, intersectional analysis, an exploration of girlhood studies, TV and film studies, theme park ethnographies, advertising and promotional cultural analysis, political economy, and ethnic and cultural studies analysis. Some of her other work has appeared in the Journal of Children and Media, International Journal of Communication, Women’s Studies in Communication, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Feministas Unidas, and various edited collections such as: The Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents, and Media, Second Edition (2022), Latina/o/x Communication Studies: Theories, Methods, and Practice (2019), Black Mirror and Critical Media Theory (2018), and Teaching, Learning, and Intersecting Identities in Higher Education (2011).
RESEARCH AREAS
Critical/Cultural Studies, Feminist Media Studies, Latina/o/x Studies, Digital Media, Audience Studies, Political Economy, Global Disney