Communication Studies
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Dr. Karen E. Lovaas (Ph.D. in American Studies, University of Hawaii) is Associate Professor of Communication Studies with an emphasis in Critical Theory. Her teaching and research are in the areas of gender, sexuality, culture, the prison industrial complex, conflict, and critical pedagogy. She is currently serving as the department's Basic Course Director and is co-chairing the university’s Liberal Studies Council.

Karen’s most recent publications are three books and an encyclopedia entry. She co-edited the anthology, Sexualities and Communication in Everyday Life (Sage, 2007) with department colleague Lee Jenkins. LGBT Studies and Queer Theory: New Conflicts, Collaborations, and Contested Terrain (Haworth Press, 2006) was co-edited with SFSU colleagues John Elia and Gust Yep. Queer Theory and Communication, with Gust Yep and John Elia came out in 2003 (Haworth).

Her latest encyclopedia entry, on abortion in the 20th century, appears in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship, and Sexuality through History, Vol. 6: The 20th and 21st Centuries ( Greenwood, 2007). Earlier, she authored encyclopedia entries on “gender roles” and “sexism” for The International Encyclopedia of [Homo]sexualities, Education, and Cultures ( Greenwood, 2005), and glossary entries on “cross-dressing,” “free love,” “liberation,” and “sexual assault” for Sexuality: The Essential Glossary (Hodder Arnold, 2004).

She co-authored three journals articles and one book chapter between 2001 and 2003. “A Critical Appraisal of Assimilationist and Radical Ideologies Underlying Same-Sex Marriage in LGBT Communities in the United States,” written with Gust Yep and John Elia, was published in 2003. “Sexual Practices, Identification, and the Paradoxes of Identity in the Era of AIDS: The Case of ‘Riding Bareback’” (2002), was co-authored with Gust Yep and Alex Pagonis.  With two of her undergraduate students, she wrote “ Transcending Heteronormativity in the Classroom: Using Queer and Critical Pedagogies to Alleviate Trans-Anxieties,” in Journal of Lesbian Studies (2002), which was simultaneously published in Addressing homophobia and heterosexism on college campuses (Haworth Press, 2003). “Communication in ‘Asian American’ Families with Queer Members: A Relational Dialectics Perspective, ” co-authored with Gust Yep and Philip Ho, appears in Queer Families, Queer Politics: Challenging Culture and the State (Columbia University Press, 2001).

Karen Lovaas is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Homosexualityand the new online journal, Liminalities. She is active in the National Communication and Western States Communication Associations. Ongoing projects utilize critical, queer, and feminist approaches to communication research and pedagogy.

Life outside of academia include her love for her partner, Erich, her cats, Laka and Lono, family, friends, the ocean, dancing, reading, movies, and teaching/tutoring at San Quentin State Prison.