Miranda Joseph

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Miranda Joseph presenting research at the American Studies Association conference. Miranda Joseph.jpg
Miranda Joseph presenting research at the American Studies Association conference.

Miranda Joseph is an American academic who teaches at the University of Minnesota. She is a social theorist and author known for her work linking cultural and economic processes. Joseph has written two books on the topic, Against the Romance of Community and Debt to Society: Accounting for Life Under Capitalism.

Contents

Education and career

Joseph graduated from the University of Pennsylvania [1] and earned a doctorate in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University in 1995.

She started her career at the University of Arizona in 1995 as faculty in Gender & Women's Studies. [2] She served as Director for the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies and on the faculty executive committee once it became the Institute for LGBT Studies. [3] As Director, Joseph led the Rockefeller-funded Sex, Race, and Globalization (SRG) Project from 1999 to 2005 to explore “the imbrication of sexuality, gender, and race with economic, political, and information processes across local, regional, national, and transnational scales…[and] to describe and explain the links between exploitative economic practices and structures of sexual, gendered, and racial inequality.” [4] During her tenure at University of Arizona, Joseph served as Director of Graduate Studies and Chair of Gender & Women's Studies and chaired the Strategic and Budget Advisory Committee. [2] [5]

Joseph became the Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts at University of Minnesota in 2016 [6] and subsequently chaired the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies from 2017 to 2020. As of 2024, she is a professor of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota and Chair of the Department of American Studies. [7]

Works

In her books, Joseph theorizes the relationship between cultural and economic processes. Based on her dissertation at Stanford, [2] Joseph's first book Against the Romance of Community explores the supplementary relationship of "community" with capitalism. The book argues that while "community" is invoked as a positive relationship that supposedly exists outside of capitalism, that it in fact is deeply imbricated with capitalism. The book draws on ethnographic research with gay and lesbian theater company Theater Rhinoceros in San Francisco. Her second book, Debt to Society: Accounting for Life Under Capitalism, theorizes accounting practices as they are used to reproduce or transform neoliberal capitalism.

Joseph has produced a strand of scholarship considering key issues in interdisciplinary departments and fields, particularly women's studies, [8] [9] queer studies, [10] [11] and American studies. [12] This work as well as her projects about university property and finance contributes to critical university studies. [13] [14]

Selected publications

Honors and awards

An endowed lecture at the University of Arizona in her name "honors the scholarly and institution-building work of Miranda Joseph, a former UA [Gender and Women's Studies] Professor whose leadership efforts contributed to the creation of the LGBTQ+ Institute." [3]

Personal life

Joseph is married to Erin L. Durban. [1] As of 2017, the couple has lived with their kid Fenniver in the University Grove faculty neighborhood at the University of Minnesota where they have conducted ethnographic and archival research about histories of racism and racial exclusion. [17] [18]

References

  1. 1 2 "Miranda Joseph, Erin Durban". The New York Times. October 20, 2019 – via NYTimes.com.
  2. 1 2 3 "Miranda Joseph | Modern Thought & Literature". mtl.stanford.edu.
  3. 1 2 "Miranda Joseph Endowed Lecture | LGBTQ+ Institute". lgbt.arizona.edu.
  4. ↑ Joseph, Miranda; Rubin, David (August 24, 2007). "Promising Complicities: On the Sex, Race and Globalization Project". In Haggerty, George E.; McGarry, Molly (eds.). A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. Wiley. pp. 430–451. doi:10.1002/9780470690864.ch23. ISBN   978-1-4051-1329-8 – via CrossRef.
  5. ↑ "UA President, Provost Clarify Transformation Plan". University of Arizona News. October 7, 2008.
  6. ↑ "Previous Winton Chair Holders & Visiting Scholars". College of Liberal Arts.
  7. ↑ "Miranda Joseph". College of Liberal Arts.
  8. ↑ Joseph, Miranda (2013). "Risking Justice: Women's Studies Beyond Measure". Feminist Formations. 25 (3): 135–142. doi:10.1353/ff.2013.0046. ISSN   2151-7371.
  9. ↑ Joseph, Miranda (2002), "Analogy and Complicity", Women’s Studies on Its Own, Duke University Press, pp. 267–292, doi:10.1215/9780822384311-017, ISBN   978-0-8223-2950-3 , retrieved 2026-01-30{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  10. ↑ Crosby, Christina; Duggan, Lisa; Ferguson, Roderick; Floyd, Kevin; Joseph, Miranda; Love, Heather; McRuer, Robert; Moten, Fred; Nyong'o, Tavia; Rofel, Lisa; Rosenberg, Jordana; Salamon, Gayle; Spade, Dean; Villarejo, Amy (2012). "Queer Studies, Materialism, and Crisis: A Roundtable Discussion". GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. 18 (1): 127–147. doi:10.1215/10642684-1422170. ISSN   1527-9375.
  11. ↑ Joseph, Miranda; Rubin, David (2007-08-24), Haggerty, George E.; McGarry, Molly (eds.), "Promising Complicities: On the Sex, Race and Globalization Project", A Companion to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies (1 ed.), Wiley, pp. 430–451, doi:10.1002/9780470690864.ch23, ISBN   978-1-4051-1329-8 , retrieved 2026-01-30{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  12. ↑ Joseph, Miranda (2014). "American Studies and the University of Debt". American Quarterly. 66 (2): 283–287. doi:10.1353/aq.2014.0022. ISSN   1080-6490.
  13. ↑ Joseph, Miranda (2015). "Investing in the cruel entrepreneurial university". South Atlantic Quarterly. 114 (3): 491–511. doi:10.1215/00382876-3130712.
  14. ↑ Joseph, Miranda (2014-09-01), "Accounting for Interdisciplinarity", Debt to Society, University of Minnesota Press, pp. 119–150, doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816687411.003.0005, ISBN   978-0-8166-8741-1 , retrieved 2026-01-30{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)
  15. ↑ Review of Against the Romance of Community
  16. ↑ Reviews of Debt to Society
  17. ↑ "University Grove spotlights Minnesota architecture". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 2023-02-28. Retrieved 2026-01-30.
  18. ↑ Durban, Erin L.; Joseph, Miranda (2025-03-31). "Reimagining Ethnographic Research for Collective Access through (Crip) Collaboration". The Disabled Anthropologist. Taylor & Francis. pp. 96–116. doi:10.4324/9781003476726-6. ISBN   978-1-003-47672-6. Archived from the original on 2025-04-29.
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