Shannan L. Hayes is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Program in Literature and Feminist Studies at Duke University. She holds an M.A. in Continental Philosophy with a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from Stony Brook University (2012), where she also earned an M.F.A in sculpture and installation (2009). Her research and writing explores the politics of art and aesthetics in late capitalism, with an emphasis on feminist political thinking around affect, identity, social reproduction, and participatory world-building.

In addition to teaching classes at the intersection of Visual Studies and Gender Studies at Haverford, Hayes will be completing her dissertation entitled An Aesthetic Disposition: Art, Social Reproduction, and Feminist Critique. This project focuses on the work of three contemporary artists: Simone Leigh, Roni Horn, and Mika Rottenberg. The dissertation spans a range of media and content, from a work of black feminist health-care centered social practice art (Leigh), to a set of “androgynous” minimalist glass sculptures (Horn), to a series of Rube Goldberg-like video works depicting women in absurd scenes of global production (Rottenberg).

Hayes has taught undergraduate courses in studio art, writing, visual cultural studies, and women’s and gender studies since 2006. In addition to classroom teaching, she has led tours as the Mellon Teaching Fellow at the Nasher Museum of Art and served for four years as the site coordinator and academic instructor of an 8-week race and gender social justice themed immersive learning program in New York called The Moxie Project. Her publications include a forthcoming article in Women & Performance entitled “Counterpublic and Counterprivate: Zoe Leonard, David Wojnarowicz, and the Political Aesthetics of Intimacy” (co-authored with Max Symuleski), and the 2013 article “Justice Regained: The Objects and Lessons of Object Lessons” published in Feminist Formations. She will defend her dissertation in March of 2020.