Nicoletta Vangelisti

About Me

I am an artist, producer, researcher and writer. I am currently completing a PhD (ABD) in Communication with a specialization in Critical Gender Studies at the University of California, San Diego. I have also worked as an Executive Chef, a professional golf caddie, bartender, consultant, and newspaper columnist. I am a lifelong traveller who has always followed the path my heart revealed through my insatiable curiosity about ways to live life and the call of a good story.My dissertation, titled Making at the Margins: Cultural Labor, Value and Social Reproduction in an Alternative Independent Filmmaking Industry, addresses the production of value from the Alternative Independent Filmmaker and marginalized film worker standpoints and how value persists over time through cultural connections to cinema. My study focuses on forms of social and cultural value with material impacts in the day to day lives of these filmmakers and film workers, including: healing from the damage of the violent anti-Black systems of domination and discrimination; the ability to engage in culture through day to day labor without hiding queer identity; contributing to a legacy of modern cinema; and reclaiming storytelling roles in cultural traditions that predate the expansion of global colonialism.When I am not engaged with my film and academic work, I love to have long, animated [gestures in Italian] conversations about art, culture and life, read as much as I can, take advantage of Southern California weather by swimming and going on hikes and perhaps watching too much Star Trek. I believe living is a practice that requires courage to make space for joy and am dedicated to being in service to others. Together we can shape the possible visions for an equitable and liberated future.

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Research, Experience & Public Outreach

Education

PhD, Communication (ABD) expected completion Spring 2025
Chairs: Dr. Boatema Boateng, Prof. Zeinabu Davis
University of California San DiegoMA, International Affairs (2017)
Advisors, Mark Johnson and Sean Jacobs
The New SchoolCertificate, Palestinian and Arabic Studies (2015)
Bierzeit UniversityBA, Liberal Arts (2015)
The New School

Research Interests

Political economy of philanthropic and community resourced creative collaborative labor and cultural production with emphases on identity, representation, community, practice, agency, critical gender studies, interdisciplinary qualitative methods, Black socialist feminisms, ethics of storytelling, queer studies, and transgender marxism.

Research Statement

My research agenda examines how film and media labor taking place in the fringes of the commercial entertainment industry shape cultural identity and lived experiences of communities relegated to the social margins by what the Combahee River Collective named interlocking systems of oppression: race, gender, class, nationality and ability. In my dissertation, I analyze how filmmakers and film workers express value as an outcome of their low-paid or unpaid labor in relation to the significance they hold for the role of cinema in their lives and the lives of their communities. I argue that filmmaking continues to be an essential practice in the production of meanings about marginalized life, heal from the day to day violence of social marginalization, reclaim stolen/erased histories and expand the horizon of possibilities for living dignified lives outside of the current economic and political order. I draw empirical evidence from documentary film analysis, ethnographic field work, interviews, conversations and personal experiences.My interdisciplinary approach toward studying the racialized, gendered and labor experiences of marginalized filmmakers and film workers has involved engaging in film workspaces and discussing life experiences in conversations with filmmakers and film workers. A core methodological approach I have taken is to record conversations and return to them over time to enrich my understanding of Alternative Independent Filmmaking as I engage in it. I plan on expanding my analysis of value in through the inclusion of film festival programmers, volunteers and audiences. Many film festivals—such as BlackStar, TRANSlations and Reel Sisters of the Diaspora—are formed around a desire to provide film experiences for marginalize communities and opportunities for filmmakers to exhibit their films. Filmmaking nearly always has an intended audience in mind as a purpose to its production. However, marginalization from commercial distribution and exhibition networks makes it incredibly difficult to provide in person cinematic experiences for specific audiences.The fight for representation as the ability to see yourself and your life experiences reflected in film requires day to day representation of sameness and difference through collaborative work. In order for Alternative Independent Filmmaking to exist, it is dependent upon the charity of philanthropic organizations which operate in a third social space—not quite business nor state. I plan on conducting institutional ethnography within and around a philanthropic institution—such as the Mellon Foundations or the Ford Foundation—which supports cultural production in the margins under a rhetorical structure of social justice. Institutional ethnography is engaged research which centers the experiences of people in relation to the institution, including institutional workers, management and donors as well as those who attempt to procure funding through the grant process and those who receive grant funding. I believe that an analysis of the structuring influence of philanthropy will reveal additional insights into the production of culture in the social margins.

Invited Presentations

"LGBTQIA+ Communities Practice of Medicine.” Panelist. UC San Diego School of
Medicine. San Diego, CA, 2023.“Seven of Nine, Adult Adolescence & Gender Transition.” San Diego Public Library, 2023.“Reading is Fundamental: A Community Address.” Rainbow Graduation, UCSD, 2023.“Navigating Our Identities at Work.” The annual graduate student symposium, The New
School, 2021“Resource Transfer and Allyship as Media Practice in the Occupied Territories of Palestine”
Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environmental Studies, February 2017“International Allyship: Decolonial and Antiracist Student Media Movements in New York City”
Birzeit University, July 2016

Public Events Organized & Produced

"Queer (Trans)Indigenous Constellations: A Celebration and Conference for queer/trans/
two-spirit/Indigiqueer BIPOC in media, art and research." A first of its kind university supported conference centered on bringing together research and art practitioners to build community and share knowledge. (Anticipated for Fall 2025)“Paris is Burning.” Public film presentation and roundtable conversation with San Diego drag performers Amber St. James and Nebula. The Loft at UCSD, 2022.“The Nicholas Papadopoulos Endowed Lecture in Gay & Lesbian Studies Featuring Black Women and Queer Filmmakers.” With Michelle Parkerson, Zeinabu Davis, Yvonne Shirley, Stefani Sontage, and Chanelle Pearson. Annual keynote event for the Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California San Diego, 2022.“On writing the self and transgender identity in the academy.” With McKenzie Wark. Critical Gender Studies program, University of California, San Diego, 2022.“Podcast Platforms & Transgender Mutual Aid.” Host. Public talk with known transgender podcast hosts and producers Diamond Stylz, Tuck Woodstock, Breanna Jenkins and Xe De Fischer. The Democracy Lab and Critical Gender Studies, UCSD, 2021.“The Nicholas Papadopoulos Endowed Lecture in Gay & Lesbian Studies Featuring the film Disclosure.” Moderator. Annual keynote event for the Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California San Diego, 2021.

Roll Call

All the people and organizations who continue to inspire me each and every day I take breath:

Hasheemah Afaneh ~ Writer
Patrick Anderson ~ Writer, Theorist, Mentor
Boatema Boateng ~ Artist, Theorist, Mentor
Portia Cobb ~ Interdisciplinary Artist, Documentarian, Professor, Gemini
Peggy Cosgrave~ Actress, Traveller, Lover of Food, Home
Matthew Daniels ~ Artist, Healer, Multi-life Companion
Zeinabu irene Davis ~ Filmmaker, Professor, Mentor, Aries
Lito Espudo ~ Artist, Sag, Fag, Family, Lover of Live Jazz Events
Anvar Hassanpour ~ Filmmaker, Father, Marxist, Comrade
Emeer Hassanpour ~ Filmmaker, Charmer, Debater
Erin Hill ~ Writer, Historian, Hollywood Girlboss
Alexis Hithe ~ Artist, Girlboss, Goddess
Asher Honish ~ Photographer, Double Cancer
Hazel Katz ~ Filmmaker, Visual Artist, Virgo
Camille Lenain ~ Photographer, Traveller, Critic of Life
Teresa Naval ~ Family, Grad Companion, Boxes and Zines
Palestine ~ The Land & Her People (and food!)
Michelle Parkerson ~ Filmmaker, Historian, Icon
Roy Pérez ~ Writer, Theorist, Mentor to all girls like us
Dr. Tina Rafidi ~ Educator, Academic, Activist, Mentor
Akshita Sivakumar ~ Designer, Architect, and Technoscience Studies Scholar

Contact

Nicoletta Vangelisti
Department of Communication #0503
Media Center and Communication Building (MCC)
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA
92093-0503

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