RESEARCH

Please see my research interests/areas below:

• Black Popular Culture

• Afrofuturism

• Black Speculative Fiction

• Horror Noire

• Black Athletes & Sports

• Gender & Sexuality in Media

• Professional Wrestling

While I primarily engage in critical scholarship, I am equally experienced in qualitative and quantitative methods.  

Uptgrow, N. (2026). “I Do What I Want”: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Counter-Hegemonic Gender Norms in Bad Bunny’s Work. Howard Journal of Communications, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2026.2614706

Uptgrow, N. (2025). Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer & Feminism in Praxis. Feminist Media Studies, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2025.2512225

National Communication Association 111 Conference, “Communicate to Elevate,” Denver, CO (Nov 19-23, 2025)

Panel Session: Exploring Puerto Rican Identity and Resistance through Bad Bunny’s DTmF Album

• Paper Presented: “‘I Do What I Want’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Counter-Hegemonic Gender Norms in Bad Bunny’s Work”

Panel Session: Reframing the Narrative: The Evolution of Black Media Toward Empowerment and Uplift 

• Paper Presented: "Challenging the Stereotypes or More of the Same: A Critical Textual Analysis of the Male Characters of She’s Gotta Have It"

Panel Session: Elevating the Intersection(s): Interrogating Race, Gender, Place as Political Resistance and Reclamation 

• Paper Presented: “‘He May be Zesty, but that Three’: A Critical Case Study of Jared McCain and Black Masculinity in the NBA”

Paper Session: “‘Is My Very Nature That of the Devil’: A Critical Textual Analysis of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Black Male Homosexuality in Black Horror”

Cultural Studies Association Conference, “Imaginary Futures: Utopias, Dystopias, and Protopias of Cultural Studies,” California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (May 29-31, 2025)

Panel Session: Subversions, Liminality, and Liberatory Textuality in Film and Television

• Paper Presented: “’Down in the Valley’: A Critical Textual Analysis of the Representations of Sexuality and Masculinity of the Male Characters of P-Valley”

Howard University Research Symposium, Washington, DC (April 24-25, 2025)

Poster Presentation: "Whoever Controls Cinema, Controls History": How Lovecraft Country Disrupted the United States' Historical Imaginary

Africana Digital Humanities @ HBCUs Convening, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA (March 15-17, 2025)

Panel Session: Africana Digital Storytelling through Afrofuturism

• Paper Presented: “The Reclamation and Restoration of Black History and Narratives in Lovecraft Country”