Miguel A. Avalos is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research is motivated by the question, “How do racially minoritized communities navigate state violence, especially within borderlands?” He uses diverse qualitative methods to examine Latinx transborder commuters’ everyday experiences in the United States-Mexico borderlands, focusing primarily on cross-border, dwelling, and home-making practices.
Areas of Expertise
Global and transnational sociology, Latinx sociology, border studies
Courses Recently Taught
This mid-level course will explore the methods that sociologists use to study popular culture and media products, and will examine the connections of popular culture and media to broader social patterns within American society. Course material will cover a range of subjects, including movies, television, the news, novels, and advertising. Students will become familiar with several approaches to the study of popular culture and mass media, and examine what these cultural products can reveal about social norms, trends, and relationships. In addition to empirical assessments of the content of cultural products, the course will examine the institutional structures that shape their production and distribution, as well as patterns of audience consumption and interpretation. This work will culminate with the opportunity to design a research project that uses sociological methods to critically interpret and analyze popular culture products. Prerequisite: foundation course in sociology or permission of instructor.