Shannan L. Hayes is an interdisciplinary scholar of cultural studies, political-economics, and feminist political theory. She situates her work primarily in a Marxist-Foucauldian feminist framework as she investigates practices of social reproduction, social change, and subject formation in the context of late capitalism. Current research focuses on contemporary experiments in affirmative world-making that span the domains of art, activism, and collective sustenance. 

Shannan has taught undergraduate courses in writing, cultural studies, critical theory, women’s and gender studies, film, and studio art 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 City called The Moxie Project. Shannan is unoffically affilated with several queer-centered race-, gender-, and economic-justice efforts on the ground in Philadelphia where she lives.

Publications include: the forthcoming critical keywords entry for "Marxist Feminisms" in the John Hopkins University Guide to Critical and Cultural Theory, the 2020 article "Wanting More" in the feminist cultural studies journal differences, the 2019 article “Counterpublic and Counterprivate: Zoe Leonard, David Wojnarowicz, and the Political Aesthetics of Intimacy” (co-authored with Max Symuleski) in Women & Performance, and the 2013 article “Justice Regained: The Objects and Lessons of Object Lessons” in Feminist Formations. She defended her dissertation in March of 2020 from the Programs in Literature and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University, with the generous support of the 2019-20 Hurford Center Pre-Doctoral Fellowship at Haverford.

Shannan will be teaching the following classes in 2021-2022: Applied Political Ethics (fall, Peace, Justice, and Human Rights), Social Change & Institutions (spring, Peace, Justice, and Human Rights), On Higher Ed: Intro to Critical University Studies (fall, Writing), and Real Work & Dream Jobs: Visual Representations and Theories of Work (spring, Writing).