Loyola Marymount University is a top-ranked national university by U.S. News and World Report, which places LMU among the top six Jesuit universities in the country and in the top six private universities in California. Founded in 1911, LMU is a Catholic, Jesuit, and Marymount university with more than 7,100 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate and law students. LMU offers 56 undergraduate majors and 56 minor programs, along with 46 master’s degree programs, three doctorate programs and 12 credential/authorization programs. LMU’s intercollegiate athletics teams compete in the West Coast Conference with 14 Division I varsity sports.

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Association for Latina/o and Latinx Anthropologists Book Award

Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Award

Latin American Studies Association, Latinx Studies Section Book Award: Honorable Mention

Historical Society of Southern California, Ahmanson Grant

Dartmouth College César Chávez Postdoctoral Fellowship

Mellon Summer Institute on Tenure and Professional Advancement (SITPA) Scholar

Ford Foundation, Postdoctoral Fellowship

UCLA Institute of American Culture Visiting Researcher Program Award

UCLA Institute of American Cultures Research Grant in Ethnic Studies

University of Michigan Louise Ann Williams Anthropology   Distinguished Dissertation Award

University of Michigan ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award, Anthropology Nominee

American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual Photo Contest Winner

Ford Foundation, Dissertation Fellowship

Smithsonian Institute, Predoctoral Fellowship (National Museum of American History; National Portrait Gallery; Washington, D.C.)

Rackham Merit Fellowship, University of Michigan

Ford Foundation Fellowship Annual Conference Planning Committee Member and Former Chair

Puerto Rican Studies Association

American Anthropological Association

New England Consortium of Latino Studies

Association of Latina & Latino Anthropologists

Latin American Studies Association

Society for the Anthropology of North America

National Association of Hispanic Journalists

Latina/o Studies Association

National Association of Latino Independent Producers

Manufacturing Celebrity: How Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters Build the Hollywood Industrial Complex

The Power of Popular Protest: El Verano Boricua, 2019

Raciontologies: Rethinking Anthropological Accounts of Institutional Racism and Enactments of White Supremacy in the U.S.

Hollywood Diversity Report. Fourth Annual. UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies sponsored, self-published sociological study.

HateCrimeMap.com

At the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Criminalizing the Latina/o Paparazzi of Los Angeles

Brad & Angelina: And Now…Brangelina!

Latinos at the Margins of Celebrity Culture: Informal Image Sales and the Politics of Paparazzi

“De Puerto Rico a Nueva York, De Puerto Rico a California”: A Micro-History of Puerto Rican Activism and Pan-Ethnic Alliance in Southern California

Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio (From the Beginning)

Cuban HipHop: A Contemporary Example of Transculturation.

Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood

P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance

Introduction to Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies

Race, Media, and Representation

Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico

Email: vanessa.diaz@lmu.edu
Dr. Vanessa Díaz is an interdisciplinary ethnographer, filmmaker, and journalist. Her research focuses on race and gender in the production of media and popular culture across the Americas. Díaz is most well-known for her work on Latin music and, in particular, her focus on Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke University Press, co-author Petra Rivera-Rideau). Díaz has taught the  course "Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico" every semester since the spring of 2023 and is the co-creator of the Bad Bunny Syllabus Project, which seeks to educate the public on Bad Bunny's global impact & how it reflects political, artistic, and cultural triumphs and struggles within Puerto Rico. Díaz’s award-winning book, Manufacturing Celebrity: How Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters Build the Hollywood Industrial Complex, was published with Duke University Press (2020). Grounded in her experience as a red carpet reporter for People magazine, Manufacturing Celebrity focuses on hierarchies of labor as well as ethnoracial and gender politics in the production of celebrity-focused media. The research for Manufacturing Celebrity was supported by numerous grants and fellowships, including those from the Ford Foundation Fellows/National Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Historical Society of Southern California, among others. Díaz is also a co-author of UCLA’s 2017 Hollywood Diversity Report. In addition to her research on media and popular culture in the United States, she has also done extensive research on cultural production in the Caribbean and among its diasporas. In 2006, she completed her independent feature-length documentary Cuban HipHop: Desde el Principio (From the Beginning), which recounts the history of the Cuban HipHop movement while exploring how Afro-Cuban youth use HipHop to defy misconceptions about censorship in Cuba by delivering social critiques of racism and poverty on the island. Díaz is called upon by publications ranging from The Atlantic, to the Los Angeles Times, to NPR to comment upon major events in popular culture. She is able to provide necessary context to understand how and why particular events capture the American popular imagination, while simultaneously revealing the hidden labor and racial struggles involved in the production of popular culture.

Music

oral & life histories

Latin America

political culture

diasporas

Labor & Employment

(im)migration

Nationalism

Latina/o/x identity

United States

Hollywood   

Cuba

Caribbean

Bad Bunny

Puerto Rico

Celebrity Culture

Entertainment

Gender & Sexuality

race & racialization

Media & popular culture

English

Spanish

Website for Díaz's book Manufacturing Celebrity 

Duke University Press page for Manufacturing Celebrity (introduction available for free)

Bad Bunny Syllabus Project

Duke University Press page for P FKN R 

“Why Puerto Rico is adding ‘USA’ to its Drivers Licenses.”

“A look inside this California university’s Bad Bunny Course.”

Soul of a Nation special: “The Latin Music Revolution.”

Bad Bunny Conquered the World, Now What?

Opinion: At Coachella, Bad Bunny stays true to himself

Al Punto with Jorge Ramos

Why Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is Such a Big Deal

Bad Bunny Wins Best Música Urbana Album at the 65th Grammy Awards

Bad Bunny, Reggaeton, and Resistance

Vanessa Díaz exposes violence Latino paparazzi face in 'Manufacturing Celebrity'

‘Manufacturing Celebrity’ Spotlights Exploitation in Hollywood-Obsessed Media

Hate Crimes and Donald Trump: Why It’s So Hard to Prosecute Racist, Hateful Acts

How ‘Brangelina’ Gave a Couple Its Mystique

Why the Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt marriage mattered so much in modern Hollywood

Cuban hip-hop culture comes to Michigan

Uprising Radio

Associate Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies

Book trailer for Vanessa Díaz's book, Manufacturing Celebrity. 

https://www.dukeupress.edu/manufacturing-celebrity

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, her experience reporting for People magazine, and dozens of interviews with photographers, journalists, publicists, magazine editors, and celebrities, Vanessa Díaz traces the complex power dynamics of the reporting and paparazzi work that fuel contemporary Hollywood and American celebrity culture.

Vanessa Díaz is Assistant Professor of Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

Fall 2020 catalog: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/Cat...
Twitter: http://twitter.com/dukepress
Instagram: http://instagram.com/dukeuniversitypress

This video is for educational purposes and is protected under fair use. Trailer edited by: Larissa Díaz Hahn, The Díaz Collective

Trailer for Manufacturing Celebrity by Vanessa Díaz

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