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Kate Arnold-Murray

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Colorado Boulder, and hold a Master’s in Sociolinguistics from Georgetown University. My primary research interests lie in language, power, and identity. I am especially interested in expanding frameworks of discourse analysis to multimodal interaction. My advisor here at CU is Dr. Kira Hall.

Studying interaction on social media, I examine identity construction and the production of normativities. My research is diverse and examines: Taylor Swift fandom; U.S. political campaign advertising; queer and trans identity construction in religious spaces; contestations of anti-Semitism online; sperm-donor kinship; and DNA as a future-making technology. Activism and action through research is crucial, and my dissertation focuses on and how campaigns on the political left are using language and visual messaging in innovative ways to connect with and motivate voters.

My dissertation, titled “Swifties for Kamala: Affective semiotics and celebrity capital in the Harris 2024 US presidential campaign”, examines how Taylor Swift fans engaged in politics in the recent presidential election and how fan identity intersects with age, gender, and political ideologies and participation. More specifically, I examine the Swifties for Kamala grassroots movement, an all-volunteer coalition that came together quickly after Harris announced her candidacy, raising over $236,000 for Harris and directly contacting over 22 million voters in the US through volunteer efforts in just 107 days. Focusing on affect and celebrity capital, I examine how Harris-Walz semiotically borrowed celebrity capital from Taylor Swift to gain popularity and constructed and circulated joy among potential voters. The project involves mixed methodologies including discourse analysis, social semiotics, and political ethnography to analyze diverse data sources, including: social media interactions, ethnographic interviews, online and in-person political Taylor-Swift-themed political events, news media coverage, and participant observation in the campaign.

My Masters Thesis, carried out under the supervision of Dr. Cynthia Gordon, explores the ways in which dyke, queer, and Jewish identities are defined and constituted through online communication related to the DC 2019 Dyke March, and examines how these identities are taken up or refuted by members of the DC queer community and DC Jewish community.

The main purpose behind my academic pursuits is to conduct research that will have an impact on local and more global communities. As a queer woman who grew up within the queer community, I am a vocal advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, finding inspiration in my background. I follow feminist methodologies in my work oriented to social justice.

From 2015-2020, I also worked full time for Dr. Deborah Tannen in the Georgetown University Department of Linguistics. In this position, I performed a range of duties, including assisting with research, transcription, editing, and publicity related to her published works, as well as with maintenance of her undergraduate and graduate courses.

Pronouns: she/her