Romeo, Francesca

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Education

1996 UC Berkeley, B.A. 
2005 Pratt Institute, M.A. 
2021 UC Santa Cruz, Ph.D. 

Courses Taught

Visual Literacy
Digital Communication and Society

Career Specialties

Francesca Romeo's scholarship examines the nexus of digital media and political violence. Drawing upon visual studies and political theory to interrogate the nature of information and advocacy in the digital age, she is particularly invested in how networked resistance proliferates in a global context through the production and circulation of images.

Professional and Community Activities

Romeo's dissertation “Towards a Theory of Digital Necropolitics" elucidates the intersection of technology, human rights, aesthetics and testimony through representations of the dead, dying, disappeared or wounded body. Digital necropolitics explores how virtual forums and digital reconstructions extend biological death, transforming it into a productive "after-life" that can reanimate the corpse and harness mourning, testimony, affect and identification as constituent elements of social identities and political movements. Her recent publication "Networked Testimony as Necroresistance" in the journal Women and Performance conducts a close reading of Diamond Reynolds' live stream video to examine how necropolitical "selfies" harbor an anticipatory logic and provide a forum for public mourning via digital circulation. Romeo also studies the history, theory and practice of open-source investigations and how user-generated content and digital forensics can produce novel forms of human rights advocacy. Alongside her scholarship, Romeo has also been active in critical mentoring programs and sexual violence awareness campaigns.

Honors and Awards

UCSC Chancellor's Dissertation Year Fellowship
National Humanities Center Fellowship
Florence French Fellowship
Feminist Media Histories Grant
American Photography Institute Fellowship