Graduates of the School of Critical Studies go on to shape the world through their impactful work as writers, thinkers, and curators. Our alumni network includes some of the most influential voices in contemporary discourse. Here are a few:
MA Aesthetics and Politics
- Nicolas Benacerraf (MA 10), theatrical designer, installation artist, theorist
- Manuel Shvartzberg Carri (MA 13), architect, architectural historian and theorist
- John D’Amico (MA 09), architect, writer, activist, City of West Hollywood councilmember
- Shoghig Halajian (MA 11), assistant director, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)
- Jumana Manna (MA 11), artist
- Miriam Nouri (MA 11), entrepreneur and community activist
- Nate Schulman (MA 09), graphic designer
- Claudia Slanar (MA 10), public programs curator, Generali Foundation
- Sille Storihle (MA 11), artist, curator, researcher, co-founder of FRANK
- Irene Tsatsos (MA 10), gallery director and curator, Armory Center for the Arts
MFA Creative Writing
- Harold Abramowitz (MFA 06), experimental writer (Not Blessed), co-editor of eohippus labs
- Amanda Ackerman (MFA 06), experimental writer (The Book of Feral Flora), co-editor of eohippus labs
- José Felipe Alvergue (MFA 04), poet (Us Look Up)
- Rose Andersen (MFA 19) memoirist, fiction writer (The Heart and Other Monsters)
- Diana Arterian (MFA 11), poet (Monster :: Playing Seiche, With Lightness & Darkness and Other Brief Pieces, Death Centos)
- Anita August (MFA 01) Fiction writer, visual/rhetorical theorist, (Gut Bucket Blues, Visual Imagery, Metadata, and Multimodal Literacies Across the Curriculum)
- Sam Benjamin (MFA 05), memoirist (American Gangbang: A Love Story)
- Andrew Berardini (MFA 06), art critic
- Allison Carter (MFA 07), fiction writer (A Fixed, Formal Arrangement)
- Andrew Choate (MFA 03), experimental writer (Stingray Clapping), sound artist
- Cole Cohen (MFA 09), memoirist (Head Case: My Brain and Other Wonders)
- Colin Dickey (MFA 01), nonfiction writer (Afterlives of the Saints, Craniokepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius)
- Travis Diehl (MFA 10), artist, critic, Artforum contributor
- Ken Ehrlich (MFA 99), media artist, editor (Art, Architecture, Pedagogy: Experiments in Learning)
- Malik Gaines (MFA 99), performance artist, curator, co-founder of My Barbarian
- Joy Gregory (MFA 99), playwright, screenwriter, producer -- Ovation Award
- Nicholas Grider (MFA 08), experimental writer (Misadventure)
- Jeremy Hight (MFA 98), locative media artist, theorist
- Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (MFA 12), interdisciplinary artist -- Fulbright Fellowship
- Steve Kandell (MFA 99), features editor, BuzzFeed
- Douglas Kearney (MFA 04), poet (Patter; Fear, Some; The Black Automaton), performer, librettist -- Whiting Writers Award
- Emma Kemp (MFA 14) biographer, experimental writer, artist, professor (Blue Pool, Cecelia, Rockhaven: A History of Interiors, Our Modern Joy)
- Max Kim (MFA 07), fiction writer (One Break A Thousand Blows)
- Anne-Marie Kinney (MFA 08), fiction writer (Radio Iris)
- Cheryl Klein (MFA 02), fiction writer (The Commuters, Lilac Mines)
- Steven Knezevich (MFA 97), digital media strategist
- Grace Krilanovich (MFA 05), fiction writer (The Orange Eats Creeps) -- National Book Foundation “5 under 35” Award
- Brandon LaBelle (MFA 98), sound artist, editor and publisher of Errant Bodies Press
- Andrea Lambert (MFA 08), fiction writer (Jet Set Desolate)
- Janice Lee (MFA 08), experimental writer (KEROTAKIS), co-editor of {out of nothing}
- Felicia Luna Lemus (MFA 00), fiction writer (Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties, Like Son)
- Eric Lindley (MFA 08) aka Careful, glitch-folk music artist, co-editor of {out of nothing}
- Jonathan Mann (MFA 06), singer-songwriter, internet personality
- Joe Milazzo (MFA 08), fiction writer (Crepuscule W/ Nellie), co-editor of {out of nothing}
- Michael Molitch-Hou (MFA 12) experimental writer, inventor of the “why-to”, journalist
- Amanda Montei (MFA 11), poet, memoirist (Two Memoirs)
- Amarnath Ravva (MFA 04), memoirist (American Canyon)
- Andrew J. Stone (MFA 16) bizarro fiction writer, poet (The Mortuary Monster, All Hail the House Gods, The Ultimate Dinosaur Dance Off)
- Lauren Strasnick (MFA 05), YA fiction writer (Nothing Like You, Then You Were Gone)
- David Stromberg (MFA 05), journalist, literary critic, translator
- Freyda Thomas (MFA 01), actor, playwright, translator
- Mathew Timmons (MFA 05), experimental writer (The New Poetics, Joyful Noise), editor and publisher of Insert Blanc Press
- Meg Whiteford (MFA 15) novelist, dramatist, essayist, editor (Callbacks, The Shapes we Make with our Bodies)
- Emerson Whitney (MFA 14), poet, journalist (Ghost Box)