Wanzo is a professor of the Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is also a Faculty Affiliate in African and African American Studies, English, Film and Media Studies, and the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Equity, in addition to AMCS. Her research interests include African American literature and culture, feminist theory, cultural studies, media studies, and cartoon and comic studies. She previously served as Associate Director of the Center for the Humanities and Chair of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Wanzo is the author of two books. Her first, The Suffering Will Not Be Televised: African American Women and Sentimental Storytelling, was published by SUNY Press in 2009. Her second book, The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging (NYU, 2020) was awarded the Katherine Singer Kovac Book Prize from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, the Charles Hatfield Book Prize from the Comics Studies Society, and the Best Scholarly/Academic Work from the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
Wanzo is widely published, with essays in venues such as American Literature, Camera Obscura, differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Film Quarterly, as well as numerous other academic journals, edited collections, and popular media outlets. She received her PhD in English from Duke University, and her BA from Miami University (OH). Before joining the WashU faculty in 2011, she taught at the Ohio State University.
