With support from the Department of Communication, the Center for Communication Research at the U of A is kicking off its 2024-2025 First Friday Research Series with a talk by Kristen Hoerl titled, "Narcofeminism or Necrofeminism? Sexist Realism in the USA Network's Queen of the South." The event will be held on Friday, Oct. 4, from 2-3 p.m. in Kimpel Hall 102.

Dr. Hoerl is an associate professor of rhetoric and public culture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln whose research examines how popular film and television contribute to public knowledge about social activism. Her current book project on "impossible women" argues that television programs featuring the struggles of talented female characters promote "sexist realism," or the assumption that feminist activism is bound to fail. Her presentation will examine television's fascination with these "strong woman characters" in the context of the series Queen of the South, a show portraying a powerful woman figure as a narcotics trafficker.

Dr. Hoerl's scholarship invites audiences to consider what resources media culture provide for imagining more equitable futures. Her book The Bad Sixties: Hollywood Memories of the Counterculture, Antiwar, and Black Power Movements won the 2018 Best Book award from the American Studies Division of the National Communication Association. Her work also appears in a variety of journals, including the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Text and Performance Quarterly, The Review of Communication and Communication, Culture, and Critique. She is a past editor of Women's Studies in Communication, a national, quarterly, peer reviewed journal for feminist communication scholarship; and past chair of the Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division of the National Communication Association.

About the Center for Communication Research (CCR): The Center for Communication Research facilitates collaborative, interdisciplinary social research within the University of Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas region, and broader intellectual community. Toward this end, the CCR seeks to stimulate and support interdisciplinary collaborations; provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate participation; engage regional, state, and national funding agencies; and acquire and maintain the equipment necessary to support research endeavors. The CCR manages a research lab space that includes state-of-the-art technology for studying all facets of communication.