Jenna N. Hanchey
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Mail code: 1205Campus: Tempe
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Jenna N. Hanchey engages in decolonial and anti-racist analyses of Western aid and development initiatives in Africa, examining how future developmental trajectories are resisted and reimagined in the continent. Her research attends to the intersections of rhetoric, critical/cultural studies, African studies, Black feminisms, and critical development studies.
Her first book, The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO, examines how decolonial potential can emerge from the collapse of neocolonial aid and development structures. Her second book, Africanfuturism: Beyond Development, analyzes Africanfuturism in speculative fiction and the ways that Africans imagine futures beyond and against those predicted by the West. This work was awarded a 2024 Waterhouse Family Institute Grant, 2022 NEH Summer Stipend, 2023 ASU Humanities Institute Research Seed Grant, and Transformation Project Seed Grant, and is under contract with The Ohio State University Press for their series "New Suns: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative."
Her academic work may also be found in Feminist Africa; Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; Journal of International and Intercultural Communication; Review of Communication; Communication, Culture & Critique; Women's Studies in Communication; Women & Language; Departures in Critical Qualitative Research; and Management Communication Quarterly, among other venues. She co-edited a double issue of The Review of Communication with Dr. Godfried Asante on "(Re)theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives," published in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022.
Dr. Hanchey's research has won a number of awards, including the NCA Ethnography Division Best Special Issue Award, NCA Philosophy of Communication Division Distinguished Themed Edited Journal Award, NCA Rhetorical and Communication Theory Division Early Career Award, NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division New Investigator Award, ORWAC Feminist Scholar of the Year Award, NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Article Award, NCA Feminist & Gender Studies Division Outstanding Article Award, NCA Ethnography Division Best Article Award, and NCA Critical & Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Dissertation Award, among others.
She is the creator and cohost of Griots & Galaxies, a podcast speculating African futures. Griots & Galaxies is produced by the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination and supported by the ASU Institute for Humanities Research and the Transformation Project. She also reviews African speculative fiction at the LA Review of Books.
In addition to studying Africanfuturism, she is a British Science Fiction Association award-nominated speculative fiction author, and a Ignyte- and British Fantasy Award-nominated narrator for her work with Simultaneous Times. Her stories have been published in Nature, Liminalities, Daily Science Fiction, and Little Blue Marble, among other venues. She is a member of the Locus-award winning Codex Writer’s Forum and an Associate Member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. She is Poetry Editor and Audio Editor at Orion's Belt Magazine.
She is the Immediate Past President of the Organization for Feminist Research on Gender and Communication.
More information may be found at www.jennahanchey.com.
Ph.D., Communication Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2017
M.A., Communication, University of Colorado Boulder, 2012
B.S., Physics/Mathematics Education, Taylor University, 2007
Rhetoric
Critical/Cultural Studies
Intercultural Communication
Organizational Communication
African Studies
Decolonial Theory and Praxis
Critical Development Studies
Africanfuturism, Afrofuturism, and Critical Futurities
BOOKS
Jenna N. Hanchey, The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO (Durham: Duke University Press, 2023).
Jenna N. Hanchey, Africanfuturism: Beyond Development (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, Under Contract).
CO-EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES
Jenna N. Hanchey and Godfried A. Asante, eds., “(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives: Part II,” The Review of Communication 22, no. 1 (2022). Winner of the NCA Ethnography Division Best Special Issue Award and the NCA Philosophy of Communication Division Distinguished Themed Edited Journal Award.
Godfried A. Asante and Jenna N. Hanchey, eds., “(Re)Theorizing Communication Studies from African Perspectives: Part I,” The Review of Communication 21, no. 4 (2021). Winner of the NCA Ethnography Division Best Special Issue Award and the NCA Philosophy of Communication Division Distinguished Themed Edited Journal Award.
SELECTED JOURNAL ARTICLES
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Catastrophe Colonialism: Global Disaster Films and the White Right to Migrate,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 16, no. 4 (2023): 300-316.
Roberta Chevrette, Jenna N. Hanchey, Michael Lechuga, Aaron Hess, and Michael Middleton, “Rhetorical Field Methods/Rhetorical Ethnography,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication (2023): 1-37. Invited.
Jenna N. Hanchey and Peter R. Jensen, “Organizational Rhetoric as Subjectification,” Management Communication Quarterly 36, no. 2 (2022): 261-287.
Godfried A. Asante and Jenna N. Hanchey, “African Communication Studies: A Provocation and Invitation,” The Review of Communication 21, no. 4 (2021): 271-292. Winner of the NCA Critical and Cultural Studies Division Outstanding Article Award.
Jenna N. Hanchey and Godfried Asante, “‘How to Save the World From Aliens, Yet Keep Their Infrastructure’: Repurposing the ‘Master’s House’ in The Wormwood Trilogy,” Feminist Africa 2, no. 2 (2021): 11-28. Lead Article.
Jenna N. Hanchey, “‘The Self is Embodied’: Reading Queer and Trans Africanfuturism in The Wormwood Trilogy,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 14, no. 4 (2021): 320-334.
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Decolonizing Aid in Black Panther,” The Review of Communication 20, no. 3 (2020): 260-268.
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Doctors Without Burdens: The Neocolonial Ambivalence of White Masculinity In International Medical Aid,” Women’s Studies in Communication 42, no. 1 (2019): 39-59. Winner of the ORWAC Feminist Scholar of the Year Award.
Jenna N. Hanchey, “All of us Phantasmic Saviors,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 15, no. 2 (2018): 144-160.
Makiko Nagashima, Ken Kiers, Alejandro Szynkman, David London, Jenna Hanchey, and Kevin Little, “CP Violation in Three-body Chargino Decays,” Phys. Rev. D 80, no. 9 (2009): 095012-1-095012-10.
SELECTED FORUM ESSAYS
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Desire and the Politics of Africanfuturism,” Women’s Studies in Communication 43, no. 2 (2020): 119-124. Forum on “African Feminist and Queer Coalitions,” winner of the NCA Feminist and Gender Studies Division Outstanding Article Award.
Peter R. Jensen, Joëlle M. Cruz, Elizabeth K. Eger, Jenna N. Hanchey, Angela Gist-Mackey, Kristina-Ruiz Mesa, and Astrid Villamil, “Pushing Past Positionalities and Through “Failures” in Qualitative Organizational Communication: Collective Lessons on Identities in Ethnographic Praxis,” Management Communication Quarterly 34, no. 1 (2020): 121-151. Winner of the NCA Ethnography Division Best Article Award.
SELECTED BOOK CHAPTERS
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Critiquing Colonialism in African Communication Studies,” Handbook of Communication in Africa: Theory, Research and Praxis, eds. Peter F. Musibo Lumala, Joëlle M. Cruz, and Stacey L. Connaughton (New York: Taylor & Francis, Accepted). Invited.
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Africanfuturism as Decolonial Dreamwork and Developmental Rebellion,” in The Routledge Handbook to CoFuturisms, eds. Grace Dillon, Isiah Lavender III, Taryne and Jade Taylor (New York: Routledge, In Press).
Jenna N. Hanchey, “Afrofuturist Lessons in Persistence,” in Badass Feminist Politics: Exploring the Radical Edges of Theory, Communication, and Activism, eds. Sarah Jane Blithe and Janell Bauer (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2022), 276-291. Invited.
SELECTED FICTION
Jenna Hanchey, “When You See a Dragon, You Run,” Simultaneous Times. August 15, 2024. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/spacecowboybooks/episodes/2024-08-15T00_06_37-07_00
Jenna Hanchey, “It’s Time to Write Your Lesson Plan—Choose Your Own Future: Fascism Series #8,” Radon Journal. May 15, 2024. https://www.radonjournal.com/issue7/choose-your-own-future%3A-fascism-series-8
Jenna Hanchey, “The Almost-Activation of Ruby Valentine’s Catastrophe Machine,” Simultaneous Times. January 15, 2024. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/spacecowboybooks/episodes/2024-01-15T00_07_05-08_00
Jenna Hanchey, “Our World Between Their Lines,” Orion’s Belt and Utopia SF. March 17, 2023. https://www.orions-belt.net/archives/our-world-between-their-lines
Jenna Hanchey, “Sing the Phoenix to Flame,” Little Blue Marble. February 24, 2023. https://littlebluemarble.ca/2023/02/24/sing-the-phoenix-to-flame/
Jenna Hanchey, “We Found Ourselves Beyond the Vanishing Wave,” Daily Science Fiction. November 3, 2022. https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/robots-and-computers/jenna-hanchey/we-found-ourselves-beyond-the-vanishing-wave
Jenna Hanchey, “Love’s Labors, Lost,” Stupefying Stories. October 15, 2022. https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2022/10/loves-labors-lost-by-jenna-hanchey.html
Jenna Hanchey, “Break, O Time,” Medusa Tales. August 13, 2022. https://medusatales.com/break-o-time/
Jenna Hanchey, “Hello, This is Automatic Antigrief: What Problem Can I Solve For You Today?” Nature. April 20, 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01019-0
Jenna Hanchey, “Up the River, Over Mountains, Across the Sea.” Wyngraf. April 14, 2022. https://wyngraf.com/2022/04/15/cozy-flash-up-the-river-over-mountains-across-the-sea/
Jenna Hanchey, “Far From Home,” Daily Science Fiction, August 20, 2021, https://dailysciencefiction.com/science-fiction/aliens/jenna-hanchey/far-from-home
Courses
2025 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 323 | Comm Approach Popular Culture |
| COM 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| COM 690 | Reading and Conference |
2024 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 323 | Comm Approach Popular Culture |
| COM 792 | Research |
| COM 692 | Research |
| COM 792 | Research |
| COM 691 | Seminar |
2024 Summer
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 692 | Research |
| COM 692 | Research |
2024 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 323 | Comm Approach Popular Culture |
| COM 792 | Research |
| COM 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| COM 607 | Contemporary Rhetorical Method |
| COM 690 | Reading and Conference |
2023 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 604 | Theory Construction in Comm |
| COM 690 | Reading and Conference |
| COM 690 | Reading and Conference |
| COM 792 | Research |
| COM 263 | Elements Intercultural Comm |
| COM 263 | Elements Intercultural Comm |
2023 Spring
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 492 | Honors Directed Study |
| COM 692 | Research |
2022 Fall
| Course Number | Course Title |
|---|---|
| COM 792 | Research |
| COM 607 | Contemporary Rhetorical Method |
“ASU Library Celebrates Black Speculative Fiction with New Exhibit and Feature Collection,” ASU Library News, October 9, 2023. https://lib.asu.edu/news/asu-library-celebrates-black-speculative-fiction-new-exhibit-and-featured-collection
“Special Issues Highlight Communication Studies from African Perspectives.” Communication Matters: The NCA Podcast, April 14, 2022. https://natcompodcast.podbean.com/e/special-issues-highlight-communication-studies-from-african-perspectives/
“Special Issues Highlight Communication Studies from African Perspectives.” Communication Currents, March 1, 20222. https://www.natcom.org/communication-currents/special-issues-highlight-communication-studies-african-perspectives
“A Dialogue on Gender and Sexuality in African Futurism.” Invited speaker for Feminist Africa’s special issue launch, Kwame Nkrumah Pan-African Intellectual & Cultural Festival. September 23, 2021. https://kwamenkrumahfestival.com/session-recording/dialogue-on-gender-and-sexuality-in-african-futurism
“Where Can we Locate Intercultural Communication in Our Lives?” Invited interviewee for the Reynolds Sandbox, Reynolds School of Journalism, UNR. October 2, 2020. https://medium.com/the-reynolds-media-lab/where-can-we-locate-intercultural-communication-in-our-lives-89ff941d9f23
“Decolonization and Dystopian Literature.” Invited speaker for Severance Radio: A Nevada Reads Book Club, Nevada Humanities, Reno, NV. August 9, 2020. https://open.spotify.com/episode/5gbKt3RVV80iDHGVdFg2Uw
“What Should be the Trajectories of Feminist Work in the Communication Discipline at this Time?” Invited panelist for Ask the Oracle, ORWAC. June 11, 2020. https://youtu.be/hYJmE9VVxhg
“Future Visions of Confronting Racism.” Invited panelist for the Thought on Tap Series, Core Humanities Program, UNR, NV. October 10, 2019. https://www.kaltura.com/index.php/extwidget/preview/partner_id/1372381/uiconf_id/25944532/entry_id/0_kmarepfu/embed/dynamic?