Lore

Dr. Loretta LeMaster (pronouns: she/they) is an award-winning teacher, scholar, and artist who engages the intersectional constitution of cultural difference with particular focus on trans and queer of color life, art, and embodiment. Their work braids the social sciences with the humanities in service of creative, liberatory political praxes. Recent research includes critical qualitative investigations into trans life; meta-interrogations of disciplinary complacencies in U.S. settler empire-making; the rhetorical construction of transness in monstrous terms; and performative explorations of sensorial economies. They are a settler who lives, loves, and creates on stolen Akimel O'odham (Pima) and PiiPaash (Maricopa) land currently called Arizona. Scroll to see highlights of Dr. LeMaster’s professional work.

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Communication, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 2016

M.A., Communication, California State University, Long Beach, 2010

B.A., Women’s Studies, California State University, Long Beach, 2007

B.A., Sociology, California State University, Long Beach, 2007

CV: Research Highlights

Awards

Ellis-Bochner Autoethnography and Personal Narrative Research Award, The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, affiliate of the National Communication Association, 2024.

Randy Majors Award, Caucus on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns, National Communication Association, 2024.

Outstanding Scholarship Award, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Caucus, Central States Communication Association, 2023.

Innovator Award for Outstanding Edited Collection, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Caucus, Central States Communication Association, 2023.

Outstanding Book in Performance Studies and Autoethnography, Performance Studies and Autoethnography Division, Central States Communication Association, 2023.

Outstanding Scholarship Award, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Caucus, Central States Communication Association, 2022.

Book of the Year, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Communication Studies Division, National Communication Association, 2022.

Monograph of the Year, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Communication Studies Division, National Communication Association, 2022.

Innovator Award for Outstanding Edited Collection, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Caucus, Central States Communication Association, 2021.

Outstanding Scholarship Award, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Caucus, Central States Communication Association, 2021.

Early Career Award, International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry, 2021.

Best Book Award, Ethnography Division, National Communication Association, 2020.

Books

Lore/tta LeMaster, Pedagogies of the Enfleshed: Critical Communication Pedagogy Otherwise. Lexington Press, 2024.

Amber L. Johnson and Lore/tta LeMaster, editors. Gender Futurity, Intersectional Autoethnography: Embodied Theorizing from the Margins. Routledge, 2020.

journal articles

Lore/tta LeMaster, Alaina Zanin, Lucy Niess, and Haley Lucero. “Trans Relational Ambivalences: A Critical Analysis of Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Relational (Un)Belonging in Sport Contexts.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 46, no. 1, 2023, pp. 42-64. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2022.2156418.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Satoshi Toyosaki. “Ally as an Emerging Critical Orientation: Performing Praxis-Oriented Ally Subjectivity.” Queer Relationalities, special issue of Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 70, no. 1, 2023, pp. 88-110. DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2022.2104148.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Michael Tristano, Jr. “Performing (Asian American Trans) Femme on RuPaul’s Drag Race: Dis/Orienting Racialized Gender, or, Performing Trans Femme of Color, Regardless.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, vol. 16, no. 1, 2023, pp. 1-18. DOI: 10.1080/17513057.2021.1955143.

Pavithra Prasad, Angela Labador, Ana Isabel Terminel Iberri, Drew E. Finney, Marco Dehnert, and Lore/tta LeMaster. “Phantasms in the Halls: A Future University is Possible (or) … a performative response to la paperson, Stefano Harney, Fred Moten, and Julietta Singh.” Reconfiguring Dissettlement: Fugitive Bodies in Fungible Place, special issue of The Review of Communication, vol. 22, no. 4, 2022, pp. 259-75. DOI: 10.1080/15358593.2022.2151848

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Suicidal.” Critical and Performative Reflections on Current Crises, special issue of Cultural Studies  Critical Methodologies, vol. 22, no. 4, 2022, pp. 391-95. DOI: 10.1177/15327086221087667.

Lore/tta LeMaster, Meggie Mapes, Liahnna Stanley, Angela Labador, Ana Isabel Terminel Iberri, Megan Stephenson, and Tyler Rife. “Against the Grain.” Communication Education, vol. 71, no. 3, 2022, pp. 165-87. DOI: 10.1080/03634523.2022.2070921.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “‘It’s a … [inaudible blood-curdling screams, chaos]!’: Gender Reveal Party Fails as Ideological Rupture.” Trans Rhetorics, special issue of Peitho: Journal of the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and Composition, vol. 22, no. 4, 2020, n.p.

Lore/tta LeMaster, Danny Shultz, J. Nyla, Gray Bowers, and Rusty Rust. “Unlearning Cisheteronormativity at the Intersections of Difference: Performing Queer Worldmaking through Collaged Relational Autoethnography.” Text and Performance Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 4, 2019, pp. 341-70. DOI: 10.1080/10462937.2019.1672885.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Amber L. Johnson. “Introduction: Unlearning Gender: Toward a Critical Communication Trans Pedagogy.” Teaching Trans-Affirming, Intersectional Gender, special issue of Communication Teacher, vol. 33, no. 3, 2019, pp. 189-98. DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2018.1467566.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Star Gazing: Transing Gender Communication.” Teaching Trans-Affirming, Intersectional Gender, special issue of Communication Teacher, vol. 33, no. 3, 2019, pp. 221-27. DOI: 10.1080/17404622.2018.1468029.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Transing Dystopia: Constituting Trans Monstrosity, Performing Trans Rage in Torrey Peters’ Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones.” Monstrosity, special issue of Popular Culture Studies Journal, vol. 6, no. 2-3, 2018, pp. 96-117. https://mpcaaca.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/PopCultureJourn-Vol-6-2018-OCT-.jpg.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Embracing Failure: Improvisational Performance as Critical Intercultural Praxis.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, vol. 4, no. 4, 2018, pp. 1-20. http://liminalities.net/14-4/embracing.pdf.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Discontents of Being and Becoming Fabulous on RuPaul’s Drag U: Queer Criticism in Neoliberal Times.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 38, no. 2, 2015, pp. 167-86. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2014.988776.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “On Strike!: A Poetic Autoethnography of Labor.” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research vol. 4, no. 2, 2015, pp. 83-95. DOI: 10.1525/dcqr.2015.4.2.83.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Telling Multiracial Tales: An Autoethnography of Coming (out) Home.” Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 20, no. 1, 2014, pp. 51-60. DOI: 10.1177/1077800413508532.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Circles.” Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2014, n.p.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Queer Imag(in)ing: Liminality as Resistance in Lindqvist’s Let the Right One In.” Communication and Cultural/Critical Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, 2011, pp. 103-23. DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2011.566277.

Academic forum essays

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Against Carceral Feminisms, Toward Abolitionist Futures.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 47, no. 2, 2024, pp. 97-100. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2024.2343240.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Cultivating Resistance to Fascism in the Classroom: An Introduction.” Liminalities, vol. 19, no. 2, 2023, pp. 1-7. http://liminalities.net/19-2/cultivating.pdf.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “After Roe: Teaching and Researching Reproductive Justice,” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 46, no. 4, 2023, 351-53. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2023.2264134.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Anti-TERF: Trans Feminisms Against White Nationalist Projects.” Women’s Studies in Communication, vol. 46, no. 2, 2023, 218-222. DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2023.2193535.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Cispicious.” Queer/Trans Allies, academic forum in QED: A Journal in LGBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 8, no. 2, 2021, pp. 81-86. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/851598.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Amber L. Johnson. “Speculative Fiction, Criticality, and Futurity: An Introduction.” Speculative Fiction, Criticality, and Futurity, academic forum in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 18, no. 3, 2021, pp. 280-82. DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2021.1953699.

The Cacophiliacs (Tyler Rife, B. Liahnna Stanley, Megan Stephenson, Angela Labador, Ana Isabel Terminel Iberri, and Lore/tta LeMaster). “(De)Composing Ecological Futurities: Insurgent Worldmaking at the End of a World.” Anti-Black Racism, Transnational Activism, and Queer/Trans Worldmaking, special issue of QED: A Journal in LGBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 8, no. 1, 2021, pp. 131-45. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/qed.8.1.0131.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Megan Stephenson. “Trans (Gender) Trouble.” The Future of Queer Communication, academic forum in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, 2021, pp. 190-95. DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2021.1907851.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Ana Isabel Terminel Iberri. “Critical Performative Pedagogical Encounters, or, ‘Let’s try that again. But first, let’s breathe.’” Diversity, Intersectionality, Transnationality, and Pedagogy, academic forum in Communication Education, vol. 70, no. 3, 2021, pp. 329-32. DOI: 10.1080/03634523.2021.1912791.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Meggie Mapes. “Refusing a Compulsory want for Revenge, or, Teaching against Retributive Justice with Liberatory Pedagogy.” Communication and the Politics of Survival, special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 4, 2020, pp. 401-09. DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2020.1829662.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Introduction: Felt Sex: Erotic Affects and a Case for Critical Erotic/a.” Felt Sex: Erotic Affects and a Case for Critical Erotic/a, academic forum in Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, vol. 9, no. 3, 2020, pp. 105-11. DOI: 10.1525/dcqr.2020.9.3.105.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Notes on Trans Relationality.” Queer Resistance, special issue of QED: A Journal in LGBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 4, no. 2, 2017, pp. 84-92. DOI: 10.14321/qed.4.2.0084.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Unlearning the Violence of the Normative.” In the Wake of “The Violence of Heteronormativity”: Reflecting on, Contending with Affective Remains, special issue of QED: A Journal in LGBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 4, no. 2, 2017, pp. 123-30. DOI: 10.14321/qed.4.2.0123.

Book Chapters

Lore/tta LeMaster. “After Inclusion: A Trans Relational Meditation on (Un)Belonging.” Social Justice in Action: Voices of Campus and Community, edited by Neal Lester. Modern Language Association, in press.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Angela Labador. “To Jennifer Laude, with Love: Waves of Grief against/within/across US Empire.” Queer(ing) Communication Studies: Disruptions, Discussions, and Pathways, edited by Ahmet Atay and Stephanie Young. Lexington, in press.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Michael Tristano, Jr. “A Sense of Healing: A Relational Meditation in Queer (and Trans) of Color Communism.” Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication (2nd edition), edited by Rona Halualani and Thomas K. Nakayama. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2024, pp. 337-50.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “S(t)imulation.” A Pill for Promiscuity, edited by Andrew Spieldenner and Jeffrey Escoffier. Rutgers University Press, 2023, pp. 105-10.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Queer Communication Pedagogy.” Oxford Encyclopedia of Queer Studies and Communication, edited by Isaac West, E Cram, Frederik Dhaenens, Pamela Lannutti, and Gust Yep. Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 1-26.

Meggie Mapes and Lore/tta LeMaster. “You are not my Child, I am not your Parent: A Case Against the Infantilization of Students.” Communication and Identity in the Classroom, edited by Daniel S. Strasser. Rowan & Littlefield, 2021, pp. 31-44.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Deanna L. Fassett. “Refusing Mastery, Mastering Refusal: Critical Communication Pedagogy and Gender.” The Routledge Handbook of Communication and Gender, edited by Marnel Niles Goins, Joan Faber McAlister, and Bryant Keith Alexander. Routledge, 2020, pp. 600-15.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Fostering an Emerging Queer Consciousness.” Queer Communication Pedagogy, edited by Ahmet Atay and Sandra L. Pensoneau-Conway. Routledge, 2019, pp. 166-84.

Lore/tta LeMaster and Meggie Mapes. “Embracing the Criminal: Queer and Trans Relational Liberatory Pedagogies.” Queer Intercultural Communication, edited by Shinsuke Eguchi and Bernadette Marie Calafell. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, pp. 63-78.

Lore/tta LeMaster. “Pedagogies of Failure: Queer Communication Pedagogy as Anti-Normative.” Theorizing Critical Intercultural Communication Pedagogy, edited by Ahmet Atay and Satoshi Toyosaki. Rowan & Littlefield, 2017, pp. 81-96.

Summary of Research Presentations

Keynote presentations: 10

Workshops and public dialogues: 22

Invited lectures: 30

Preconference presentations: 6

Refereed and competitive conference papers: 39

Refereed and competitive conference panel presentation: 76

CV: Teaching Highlights

Awards

Dan Brouwer Faculty Mentorship Award, Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division, National Communication Association, 2023.

Nominee, Outstanding Faculty Mentor – Doctoral Students, The Graduate College, Arizona State University, 2022.

Exemplary Teaching Award, Communication & Instruction Interest Group, Western States Communication Association, 2022.

Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award, Faculty Women’s Association, Arizona State University, 2021.

Nominee, Outstanding Faculty Mentor – Doctoral Students, The Graduate College, Arizona State University, 2020.

graduate COURSES TAUGHT 

Queer and Trans Rhetorics

Performance Criticism

Theory Construction in Communication

Survey in Performance Studies

Critical/Cultural Approaches to Communication

Contemporary Rhetorical Methods

Critical Communication Pedagogy

Queer Intercultural Communication Studies

Communicating (against) Whiteness

Communicative Abolition

Intersectionality

undergraduate COURSES TAUGHT 

Gender and Communication

Critical Conversations

Identity, Performance, and Human Communication

Communication Approaches to Popular Culture

Feminist and Queer Arts and Cultures

Feminist Debates

Feminist Research Methods

Gender, Race, Sex, and the Body

Small Group Communication

Public Speaking

Speech Arts for Children

Digital Storytelling

New Media Theory

Social Media and Ourselves

Persuasion

Intercultural Communication

Introduction to Women’s Studies

professional development

Certificate in Effective Instruction, Association of College and University Educators, 2021.

CV: SERVICE Highlights

LEADERSHIP POSITIONs

President, Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication, 2024-2026.

Chair, Ethnography Division, National Communication Association, 2022-2023.

Chair, Rhetoric, Culture, and Advocacy, Western States Communication Association, 2020-2022.

Chair, Performance Studies Interest Group, Western States Communication Association, 2015-2016.

Editorial POSITIONs

Co-Editor, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2025-2028.

Conversation and Commentary Editor, Women’s Studies in Communication, 2023-2025.

Series Editor (with Amber Johnson), Lexington Studies in Critical Futures, Lexington Press, 2023-present.

Editorial Board Positions 

Communication Studies, 2024-present.

Quarterly Journal of Speech, 2022-present.

Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2021-2023.

Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2021-present.

Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 2021-present.

Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, 2020-present.

Women’s Studies in Communication, 2019-2022.

Text and Performance Quarterly, 2019-present.

QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 2019-present.

Communication Education, 2018-present.

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research, 2015-present.

Professional development

Harm Reduction Master Class, Sonoran Prevention Works, 2024. This certificate signifies my completion of a 16-hour course to prepare individuals and agencies to deliver culturally humble services supporting all people who use drugs utilizing the evidence-based practices of harm reduction.

HIV and HEP C Testers Training, Sonoran Prevention Works, 2023. This certificate signifies my completion of a 24-hour course to prepare individuals to conduct Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Hepatitis-C tests and to deliver culturally humble services supporting all people who use drugs utilizing the evidence-based practices of harm reduction.