Assistant Professor, Race, Gender, and Ethnic Studies

About

Biography

Dr. Carolin Aronis (she/her/היא) is a scholar of critical media studies and antisemitism. Her work focuses on technology, discourse, identity, and memory using interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies. She studies rhetorical and technological systems of hate, violence, and exclusion, usually related to race, ethnicity, and gender, as well as the phenomenology of media/communication within challenging or impossible settings. Many of her research projects combine “touched” matters and built environments with the textual and the symbolic. Her study sites and points of view are often less common in her fields of inquiry, revealing a phenomenon's unexpected and hidden elemental essence.

As a biracial Jewish woman, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, immigrant, first-generation graduate, a third-generation Holocaust survivor, and an Ethnic Studies faculty, Dr. Aronis is committed to responsible justice for those oppressed and othered, and she strongly believes in scholarly and social justice coalitional work. Her research, community engagement, and teaching reside within systems of oppression, mostly in the U.S., using interdisciplinary methodologies and developing discourses across cultures, religions, and struggles, often in collaboration with others.

Her research on current antisemitism and anti-Black racism, the exclusionary reconstruction of Jewish motherhood, the politics of liminal architecture, and the communicative practice of writing to the dead via public media has appeared in journals like Quarterly Journal of Speech, Cultural Studies, Journal of Communication, Discourse & Communication, Israel Studies,  Explorations in Media Ecology, ETC: A Review of General Semantics, and ALCEU: Revista de Comunicação, Cultura e Política (see a full list of publications below), and has been translated to Portuguese, Hebrew, and soon to Spanish.

Dr. Aronis’ current research projects include the violence of swastikas and nooses on U.S. campuses (with Dr. Eric Aoki); the manifestations of racism in the 170-year journey of Sojourner Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” from print to YouTube (with Dr. Natasha Shrikant and Dr. Tori Arthur); and the rhetorical (dis)positioning of antisemitism within the discourse on race and racism. She is also working on a monograph that theorizes urban liminal architecture (windows, balconies, doors, etc.) through media theory and decolonial lens, where marginalized and racialized communities enact their in-between identities and sense of belonging. Her work has been recognized by the National Communication Association, the International Communication Association, and Western States Communication Association with Top Paper Awards and honors.

Before joining the Race, Gender and Ethnic Studies Department, and since 2017, Dr. Aronis has taught extensively at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder on race, gender, identity, communication technologies, and notions and practices of intersectionality, privilege, and oppression in the U.S. society. She taught courses like 'Visual Communication', 'Gender & Communication', 'Discourse, Culture, and Identities', and 'Communication, Technology, and Society'. In 2019-2021 she held a Postdoctoral position at the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Since 2018 she has been active in addressing the situation of the Jewish community on the CSU campus, and in the summer of 2020 was appointed the university Special Advisor on the Prevention of Antisemitism as well as the Co-Chair of the Presidential Task Force on Jewish Inclusion and the Prevention of Antisemitism. Currently, she serves as the Co-Chair of the newly established Advisory Council on Jewish Inclusion under the Office of Inclusive Excellence (with Dr. Mica Glantz). In Fall 2021 Dr. Aronis served as a member of the Inclusive Excellence Leadership Drafting Committee of the CSU Courageous Strategic Transformation.

Between 2018-2021, Dr. Aronis served on the Media Ecology Association executive board, where she was in charge of all communication and media outlets and have led strategic planning and efforts on behalf of the association and field. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015), and worked in Israel as a lecturer at three academic institutions, as a journalist, and as a biographer for Holocaust survivors.

Teaching: Current courses Dr. Aronis teaches are 'Ethnicity and the Media' (ETST 205), 'Introduction to Ethnic Studies' (ETST 100), 'Antisemitism Uncovered: From Rhetoric to Violence' (ETST 257), Technology, Race and Gender (ETST 492).

Publications

(*all publications are peer-reviewed if not mentioned otherwise)

Aronis, C. & Aoki, E. (2024). Nooses and Nazi Swastikas on U.S. Campuses: An Anti-Racist Call for a Rhetorical Reframing of Hate Symbols as Violent Technologies. Quarterly Journal of Speech, July, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2024.2377195

Aronis, C. (2022). The smartphone camera and the reconstruction of ‘good motherhood’ in the digital age. In F. Joy Green & J. McLeod Rogers (Eds.), Parenting/Internet/Kids: Domesticating Technologies. Bradford: DEMETER PRESS.

Aronis, C. (2022). The Technological Operation of the Swastika: A Media Ecology Approach. ALCEU: Revista de Comunicação, Cultura e Política, 22 (46), 96-115. *Published in both Portuguese and English: https://doi.org/10.46391/ALCEU.v22.ed46.2022.284

Aronis, C. (2022). Architectural Liminality: The Communicative Ethics of Balconies and other Urban Passages. Cultural Studies, 36(3), 475-501. DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2020.1844254 – Top 4 Paper Award in Communication Theory and research, 2020 WSCA Annual Convention; Philosophy of Communication Top Paper Panel, 2020 NCA Annual Convention

Aronis, C. (2021). The ‘tweeting’ discourse of balconies and porches in the city: Identity politics and public speaking. In E. McClellan, Y. Shin, & C. Chandler (Eds.) Urban Communication Reader IV: Cities as Communicative Change Agents (pp. 141-162). New York: Peter Lang. – Urban Communication Top Paper Panel, 2020 NCA Annual Convention

Aronis, C. (2020). Antisemitism in the U.S.: New media, new semantics, new problems. ETC: A Review of General Semantics, 76 (3-4). (*A non-peer reviewed journal)

Aronis, C. (2019). Reconstructing mothers’ responsibility and guilt: Journalistic coverage of the “Remedia Affair” in Israel. Discourse & Communication, 13(4), 377-397. (https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481319842452) – Lead Article

Aronis, C. (2019). Communication as travel: The genre of letters to the dead in public media. Explorations in Media Ecology, 18(1-2), 23-42.
(https://doi.org/10.1386/eme.18.1-2.23_1) – Top Paper Award in Philosophy of Communication, 2019 NCA Annual Convention

Aronis, C. (2017). Communicative resurrection: Letters to the dead in the Israeli newspaper. Journal of Communication, 67(6), 827-850. (doi:10.1111/jcom.12334) – Lead Article

Aronis, C. (2014). Between blame and victimization: The maternal discourse in the “Remedia Affair” coverage. Megamot: Behavioral Sciences Journal, 49(3), 576–602. (In Hebrew) http://www.szold.org.il/?CategoryID=294&ArticleID=672

Aronis, C. (2010). The Tel Aviv balcony: A space of urban politics, establishing identity and communication. Social Issues in Israel, 10, 29-54. (In Hebrew) https://www.jstor.org/stable/23389145?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Aronis, C. (2009). The balconies of Tel Aviv: Cultural history and urban politics. Journal of Israel Studies, 14(3), 157–180. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30245877?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Reprinted in M. Azaryahu & S. I. Troen (Eds.) (2011), Tel-Aviv, the first century: Visions, designs, actualities (pp. 348-372). Indiana University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gzj6q

Book Review

Aronis, C. (2018). Review of—Communication and the Baseball Stadium: Community, Commodification, fanship, and memory (Urban Communication Series), by Dale Herbeck and Susan Drucker (eds.). Explorations in Media Ecology, 17(4), 515-518.
(doi: 10.1386/eme.17.4.499_5)

Selected Media Appearance

Vicente, DJ., ‘Antisemitism Today’ addresses concerns of Jewish community. The Rocky Mountain Collegian. 2023

Aronis, C., “An Inner Call to Caring and Acting: Combatting Antisemitism.” CSU INSPIRE, The Symposium: Inclusive Excellence, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. CSU_Inspire_2022.mp4 (min 33-44). 2022

Kaylor, B., Aronis named to presidential task force charged with fostering Jewish inclusion and the prevention of anti-Semitism at CSU. Communication Studies, Colorado State University. 2021

Aronis, C., Breath Act as a Speech Act. In Thoughts During the Corona, Cultural Studies Program, the Hebrew University. (In Hebrew) 2021

Traverso, V., Why do balconies inspire us?: Balconies have always been designed to captivate and inspire the masses. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, they’ve taken on a newfound importance. BBC Travel. 2020

Aronis, C., “Anti-Semitism in the U.S.: New Media, New Semantics, New Problems,” The Institute of General Semantics Symposium, Princeton Club, Featured Speaker, New York (YouTube). 2019

Aronis, C,. Food and Culture: Carolin Aronis – ‘Land That’s Sweet As Honey’. USA Today, Storytellers Project. 2018

Aronis, C., Aronis on Her Newspapers and Letters to the Dead: Exploring beyond Materiality. Intelligencer, American Journalism Historians Association.  2017

Aronis, C., How has the Remedia Affair Pressured Mothers to breastfeed?, Haaretz (Hebrew). 2014

First Generation Story

Dr. Aronis is a first-generation college graduate (the first in her family to earn B.A., Master’s, and Doctoral degrees) and is a first-generation professor on the tenure track.  
Her maternal grandparents were made to leave their schools at the age of 11 and 14 in Eastern Poland, escape the Nazis, and never acquire full proper education. Her own parents, who were second-generation Holocaust Survivors, managed to graduate from high school (in Israel and Greece) with no plans to acquire higher education. When her mother was 31 years old, she was encouraged by a friend to pursue a college degree in the evenings at the Open University. For the first time in her life, Dr. Aronis's mother, Michal, owned a desk and a typewriter, and though she did not end up graduating from college, in many ways she was the first-generation student model for her daughter. Dr. Aronis's mother would excitedly share about her learnings and experiences from the courses she took, later on inspiring Dr. Aronis' own scholarship and career path. One of Dr. Aronis’s sweetest childhood memories is falling asleep to the sound of her mother’s working typewriter.