Leah Steuer

Expertise and Activities

Leah Steuer is a PhD candidate in Media & Cultural Studies. She focuses on embodied media reception, exploring how sensation, emotion, and materiality shapes our interpretation of texts. She is interested in affect theory, disability/accessibility, sound studies, and material fan cultures.

She is currently writing a dissertation on somatic reception, exploring various sensorial access points to TV/film spectatorship. The project includes research on:

• Audience bodies and individualism within cultural studies
• Food/nourishment and media consumption
• Disability, perceptual difference, and affective access
• Sexual expression and experience through fanworks
• ASMR and body-centered media design

She is currently assisting Prof. Jonathan Gray with a project on streaming TV audiences. She has served as editor-in-chief of Playback and as the editorial assistant for the International Journal of Cultural Studies.

Courses

• CA 100: Introduction to Speech Composition
• CA 250: Survey of Contemporary Media
• CA 351: Television Industries
• CA 451: Television Criticism

Honors/Awards

• Peer Mentor Award, 2020 (Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Funding)
• Sharon Sites Award, 2018 (Department of Communication Arts)

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• “Taste Culture: Fan Food as Sensorial Play and Pilgrimage.” In Eating Fandom: Intersections Between Fans and Food Cultures, edited by CarrieLynn D. Reinhard, Bertha Chin, Julia E. Largent, 163-176. London & New York: Routledge, 2020.
• “Structural Affects of Soap Opera Fan Correspondence, 1970s–80s.” Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 30, 2019, doi:10.3983/twc.2019.1735.

Scholarly Publications

• “Feeling Forms: ASMR Roleplays and Sensorial Media Reception,” In Media Res (Media Commons), March 2021.
• Popular Culture Dialogue: Material Popular Culture, Popular Culture Studies Journal, February 2021.
• Guest Post: Scholar Spotlight & Interview, Transformative Works and Cultures, May 2020.

Blog Posts

• “DANGEROUS GAME: Review,” Cinematheque, April 2019.
• “Spooky Pedagogy: Interactive Teaching Tools,” Playback, October 2018.
• Tingles!: ASMR and New Potentials for Studying the Embodied Audience,” Playback, September 2018.
• THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS: Review,” Cinematheque, September 2018.
• “Visions of Female Nudity on and Beyond ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’,” Playback, March 2018.

Service

• Peabody Awards Screening Committee
  • Podcasts: 2019, 2020
  • Television: 2021
• Freedom Inc community activism research team, 2020
• Graduate Student Organization area rep, 2019-2020

Education

• M.A. Cinema & Media Studies, UCLA, 2017
• B.A. Pomona College, 2011