DR. DOUGLAS MUNGIN
Teacher. Scholar
Dr. Douglas Mungin is a Communication Studies Scholar whose work explores the history and performance of homelessness and abject bodies
PROFESSIONAL BIO
Douglas Mungin is a Professor at Solano Community College where he has been the Director of Forensics since 2016. Douglas received his M.A and Ph.D. in Performance Studies at Louisiana State University and completed his undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University.
Douglas’ research explores the performance of space and identity, ranging from the creation of abject spaces, gentrification, and homelessness. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to communication studies, Douglas employs critical race theory and theories of mobility to explore how we understand and engage cultural differences across aesthetic practices. His work has been published in Text and Performance Quarterly, Texas Speech Communication Journal, and Oral History Review. He is currently working on a book that traces the impacts of socio-economic neoliberalism on the performance and political movements of homeless communities in the United States.
Dr. Mungin is one of the most sought-after instructors and mentors at Solano College. Douglas teaches public speaking, argumentation and debate, intercultural communication and persuasive speaking. Douglas is also a club faculty advisor for the Communication Studies, Poetry, and Law Program.
PUBLISHED WORK
Dr. Douglas Mungin has been published in a number of leading journals and periodicals and has gained a name as a leading voice in the area of homelessness.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF TRASH AND SKID ROW. EXCERPT FROM DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
This chapter is devoted to the formulation of trash as a racial, gendered, and political concept. I argue that within the context of urban city centers, trash refers not merely to the refuse of material objects and substances but expands to include bodies, temporalities, and practices. This chapter looks at the historical construction of trash in Los Angeles’ downtown and attempts to demonstrate the degree to which the concept of trash has been used to frame homelessness in a manner that links certain bodies and identities to materiality and practices of waste removal and management or the lack thereof.
THERE'S A SKID ROW EVERYWHERE
This dissertation tracks the historical shift from containment strategies for managing homeless populations in Skid Row to current strategies of using police and the penal system to periodically sweep the street of these unwanted bodies. This shift hinges on the construction of homelessness as a crisis requiring immediate and ongoing intervention
