Having taught in Literature and Ethnic Studies at the University of California at San Diego, Maurice E. Stevens is now an Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Studies here at OSU, and an adjunct faculty member at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in the department of Depth Psychology. Dr. Stevens’ research interests include: the formation and representation of identity in and through visual culture and political performance, critical trauma theory, popular cultural performance, affect and embodiment, and American, ethnic, and gender studies. His first book is titled Troubling Beginnings: Trans(per)forming African-American History and Identity, and he is currently working on a second book called From the Past Imperfect: Towards a Critical Trauma Theory. Dr. Stevens is particularly interested in how individuals and communities are constructed, and come to understand themselves, as actors in history and the social, and how they represent and manifest these self-perceptions through film, literature, performance art, public and private ritual, and material social relations. His work has examined contemporary film makers' attempts to recuperate moments of historical catastrophe, questions of public embodiment as they emerge in practices like 'turf dancing,' street performance, violence, and public memorializing. Part of the emerging interdisciplinary sub-field of Critical Trauma Theory, Dr. Stevens' research also studies the various practices that cohere around notions of trauma and injury in contexts like the clinic, the internet, legal debate, popular visual culture, social movement, carceral institutions, and the classroom.