Jenna Christian

Visiting Assistant Professor of Geography

Educational Background

Ph.D. 2022, Geography and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Penn State University. Dissertation: Making a Military: Race, Citizenship, and a School-to-Military Pipeline in Houston, Texas

M.S. 2012, Geography and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Penn State University. Thesis: Postwar Transformations: Women and the Work of Peace in Postwar Liberia.

B.S. 2010, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Research Interests

  • Feminist theory
  • Feminist political geography and geopolitics
  • U.S. military and militarization
  • Race and citizenship
  • War and peace studies
  • Policing and mass incarceration
  • Arts-based methods
  • Social movements and activism

Bucknell Courses

  • GEOG 101 (Globalization, People & Place)
  • GEOG 201 (Violence, War, and Feminist Geography)
  • GEOG 218 (Geographies of Justice)
  • WMST 150 (Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies)
  • WMST 223 (Feminist Care, Joy & Transformation)
  • WMST 227 (Race & Sexuality)
  • WMST 270 (Violence, War, and Feminist Thought)
  • WMST 370 (Race, Citizenship, and the Politics of Belonging in the US)

Additional classes taught at other institutions: Sex & Society (Vanderbilt), Geography of International Relations (Penn State), Geographic Perspectives on Sustainability (Penn State), Introduction to Human Geography (Penn State), World Regional Geography (Houston Community College)

Current Projects

My research broadly engages feminist theory, critical human geography, and critical theories of race in the study of the U.S. military, race, citizenship, war, education, social movements, and everyday geopolitical processes. My previous work has examined the relationship between military recruiting and enlistment and contemporary racial justice politics in Houston, Texas. Using long-term ethnographic research, I investigated military educational programming (specifically the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps), military recruiting targeting youth, and youth enlistment decisions in relation to the raced and classed opportunities in their lives. In considering how the military mobilizes ideas "good" and "deserving" citizens in recruitment efforts, and I also worked closely with activist groups responding racialized criminalization and the systemic denial of citizenship, including Black Lives Matter and immigration activists. This research reveals how raced, classed, and gendered notions of citizenship and belonging are reflected in both state violence in the city and in the reproduction of the national military. A key aspect of this work also includes the creation of visual art and comics, which I use to disseminate my research to public audiences.

My current projects include: 1) examining/writing about my use of zine making as feminist pedagogy; 2) collaborative research on emerging practices of immigration enforcements after the end of ICE-police collaborations under the 287(g) program in Houston, Texas; 3) collaborative research on the US military interventions into domestic violence among veterans; 4) individual research on the deportation of non-citizen US military veterans; and 5) the conceptual interrogation of the militarization of citizenship and the application of abolitionist theory to citizenship studies.

Selected Publications

(2019) Dowler, Lorraine and Jenna Christian. Landscapes of Impunity and the Deaths of LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland. Gender, Place and Culture.

(2019) Christian, Jenna and Lorraine Dowler. The Gendered Binary: A Feminist Critique of Slow/Fast Violence. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies.

(2019) Christian, Jenna. A Comic Essay: Military Patriotism and the JROTC. Bank Street Occasional Paper Series.[For Special Issue "Education and Patriotism"]

(2019) Dowler, Lorraine, Dana Cuomo, Azita Ranjbar, Nicole Laliberte, and Jenna Christian. Radical Care. Antipode. [For Special Issue: Antipode 50-Year Anniversary]

(2016) Christian, Jenna, Lorraine Dowler, and Dana Cuomo. Learning to Fear: Feminist Geopolitics and the Hot and Banal. Political Geography. 54: 64-72.

(2014) Dowler, Lorraine, Jenna Christian, and Azita Ranjbar. A feminist visualization of the intimate spaces of security. Area. 46(4): 347-349.

In Revision

Christian, Jenna. Creative geopolitics: art and solidarity as feminist geographic praxis. Environment and Planning C.

Personal website

https://jennamariechristian.wordpress.com/

Curriculum Vitae

Jenna Christian - CV

Contact