• Research Interests: Autonomist theories of the common and current debates about matter, nature and life developed in the fields of feminist theory, science and technology studies and decolonial thought.

Bio

Miriam Tola's dissertation project, titled "Ecologies of the Commons", places Autonomist theories of the common in conversation with current debates about matter, nature and life developed in the fields of feminist theory, science and technology studies and decolonial thought. While many thinkers emphasize either "natural" or "artificial" commons, Miriam focuses instead on "ecologies of the commons" by considering how a multiplicity of being and forces, human and more-than-human, are both products and producers of actions and thoughts that shape modes of being-in-common. Her hope is that this project will contribute to unsettle Western notions of the political as an exclusively human affair.

Before coming to Rutgers, Miriam worked as a journalist, documentary producer and film festival curator in Italy and the United States. She has been a contributor for the Italian newspaper "Il manifesto" and the magazine "D. La Repubblica delle Donne". She graduated in Communication Sciences and Film Studies from La Sapienza University in Rome with a research project on the monstrous figurations of sexual difference in post-modern science-fiction cinema. At Rutgers she has been teaching foundational courses in women's and gender studies and upper level classes in critical sexuality studies, and feminist practices. She is a graduate fellow at the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis for the academic year 2013-2014.