Jenna Hanchey
Scholar | Writer | Artist
imagining and enacting better futures
all photography copyright Jenna Hanchey; all rights reserved
I’m continually searching for radical futures, reflecting over the racial and colonial legacies of our pasts, and laboring to enact justice in the present. My academic work critically examines aid, development, and volunteer work in Africa. My creative work aims to open imaginative possibilities. I hail from Southwest Michigan and now live in Phoenix, where I work as Assistant Professor of Rhetoric & Critical/Cultural Studies in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University .
A graduate student once called me a “badass fairy.” I attempt to live up to the title.
Research
Aid Media
I’ve written articles about aid campaign media, particularly viral videos, and how even the organizations that attempt to portray African agency often do so in ways that are Westerncentric and reinforce coloniality.
NGOs in Tanzania
My first book, The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO, is forthcoming in Fall 2023 from Duke University Press. It examines how decolonial possibility emerges from the collapse of normative aid operations and subjectivities.
Africanfuturism
I am currently writing a second book on how Africanfuturism in fiction and film imagines African futures that challenge, reinvent, and eschew Western logics of development. I have been awarded a 2022 NEH Summer Stipend and 2023 ASU IHR Seed Grant for this work. For a sneak peek, see my essay on Tade Thompson’s work in Strange Horizons magazine.
Fiction
I’m a member of Codex, Associate Member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), and Poetry Editor at Orion’s Belt
Hello, This is Automatic Antigrief: What Problem Can I Solve for you Today?
What happens when we don’t allow ourselves to grieve?
Nature, April 2022
Break, O Time
I was hauntingly lucky to bear witness as the mermaid of Lake Michigan died.
Medusa Tales, August 2022
And more…
Teaching
Courses
I teach graduate and undergraduate courses focused on rhetoric and critical/cultural studies as it analyzes racism, colonialism, sexuality, gender, and culture in communication.
Media Appearances
I have appeared in podcasts and video panels about African Communication Studies, dystopia and alternative futurisms, race and campus climate, and the futures of feminism.
Performance
Audiobook Narration
I am an audiobook narrator and voice actor, whose recent narrations include Emily S. Hurricane’s The Beginning of the End, and The Hound of the Baskervilles for the However Improbable podcast. Listen to my samples or hire me to narrate at ACX.com.
Acting and Directing
I am a singer, actor, and director. Links to my virtual performances can be found here.
For Further Information
See my academic profiles at ASU, Academia or ResearchGate.
All of the photography on this website is my own, copyright Jenna Hanchey, all rights reserved. Here I’ve collected the featured images.
Jenna Hanchey 
