Roberto Avant-Mier, Ph.D.

Roberto Avant-Mier is a new faculty hire in the Communication Department. He arrived at Boston College in the fall of '04. Before BC, he was working on a Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Utah, and his previous academic work was at the University of Texas-El Paso and the University of Hawaii.

His teaching and research interests lie primarily in the intersection of communication with culture. One emphasis includes intercultural communication and the specific trajectory of critical intercultural communication, the intersection of intercultural communication with critical theory. Because of the nature of his teaching and research (gender, race, class, etc.), a logical bridge leads to critical/cultural studies and the articulation of communication with power.

He has published articles on race, ethnicity, and whiteness. Some other favorite topics are identity and nationalism, and his work on his doctoral dissertation and current research focuses on the social construction of nation and identity through popular music, specifically, "rock en español," latino/a rock, chicana/o rock, etc.

For more detail on his teaching, representative publications, life story, etc., see his website at http://www2.bc.edu/~avantmie