Faculty & Staff Directory

George Villanueva, PhD
Title/s: Associate Professor
Specialty Area: Advocacy & Social Change,Engaged Scholarship,Community-Based Research,Urban Communication,Visual Communication,Urban Planning & Development,Democracy,Space & Place,Public Culture,Cultural Anthropology,Race & Ethnicity, and Hip Hop Culture.
Office #: Lewis Towers 909
Phone: 312.915.8536
Email:
CV Link: George Villanueva CV
External Webpage: http://www.georgevillanueva.com/
About
Dr. Villanueva is Associate Professor of Advocacy and Social Change. He is an engaged scholar who is interested in how marginalized communities of color survive the material realities of structural oppression that have been reproduced along the intersectional experiences of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. To this end, he studies the role that communication, media, activism, and expressive culture play in place-based advocacy and social change goals of marginalized communities of color in cities. He values this social justice-oriented research because it reveals how marginalized groups collectively reimagine their cities toward a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive future. These research interests in the performative context of multiracial and multiethnic urban community transformations have led him to employ interdisciplinary approaches and qualitative methods that are critically grounded in communication, cultural anthropology, and sociological frameworks.
Dr. Villanueva lives in Albany Park, Chicago. Originally, he was born and raised in Los Angeles, in the intersecting neighborhoods of East Hollywood, Koreatown, and Historic Filipinotown. Spun from the Filipinx Diaspora, he craves tortang talong, white rice, tacos carne asada, kimchi soondubu jjigae and crinkle cut fries (all at the same time) just about every minute of the day.
Degrees
PhD, Communication with a Graduate Certificate in Visual Anthropology. University of Southern California, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and Department of Anthropology.
MSc, Global Media and Communications. London School of Economics and Political Science.
BA, Black Studies and History. University of California at Santa Barbara.
Courses Taught
Communication 100—School of Communication Seminar
Communication 175—Introduction to Communication
Communication 200—Communication and New Media
Communication 206—Hip Hop Culture, Communication, and Social Change
Communication 220—Introduction to Rhetoric
Communication 309—Designing Communication and Media Projects for Social Change
Selected Publications
Villanueva, G. (2020). You must learn: Sampling critical hip hop pedagogy in communication education spaces. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 1-19.
Villanueva, G. (2020). Designing a Chinatown anti-displacement map and walking tour through communication asset mapping. Journal of Urban Design, 1-24.
Villanueva, G. (2019). Making Place for My Space/Making Space for our Displacement: An Embodied Autoethnography of a Reflexive Communicative Urban Planner. Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies.Villanueva, G. & A. Wenzel. (2018). The Engaged Communication Scholar: Designing CIT-Informed Engaged Research in Diverse Communities, 167–186. In Y.C. Kim, M. Matsaganis, H. Wilkin, & J.Y. Jung (Eds.), The Communication Ecology of 21st Century Urban Communities. New York: Peter Lang.
Villanueva, G., Gonzalez, C., Son, M., Moreno, E., Liu, W., & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (2017). Bringing local voices into community revitalization: Engaged communication research in urban planning. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 45(5), 474–494.
Villanueva, G. (2017). Engaged Media Scholarship: Making Place with Community Organizers. Anthropology Now, 9 (2).
Villanueva, G. (2017). Embodying Democratic Spaces: Community Organizer Alternative Narratives That Challenge the Mainstream Negative Stigma of South Los Angeles. In J. Banh & M. King (Eds.), Anthropology of Los Angeles: City, Image, and Politics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Villanueva, G. (2016). Filipinos for Garcetti: Ethnic Political Organizing and Asian American Civic Engagement in Cities. Asian American Policy Review. 26, 10-19.
Villanueva, G., Broad, G., Gonzalez, C., Ball-Rokeach, S., & Murphy, S. (2016). Communication asset mapping: An ecological field application toward building healthy communities. International Journal of Communication, 10, 2704-2724.
Stokes, B., Villanueva, G., Bar, F., & Ball-Rokeach, S.J. (2015). Mobile Design as Neighborhood Acupuncture: Activating the Storytelling Networks of South L.A. Journal of Urban Technology. 22(3), 55-77.
Broad, G. M., Ball-Rokeach, S., Ognyanova, K., Picasso, T., Stokes, B., Villanueva, G. (2013). Understanding Communication Ecologies to Bridge Communication Research and Community Action. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 41(4), 325-345.