Erin Tatz

Erin Tatz is a Research Assistant for the Menino Survey of Mayors, the only nationally representative and scientifically rigorous survey of American mayors. She entered the Political Science PhD program in 2019 after earning a B.A. in Critical Theory and Social Justice from Occidental College in 2016 and working in the social service sector in southern India for three years. She studies Political Theory and American Politics and engages primarily with the fields of critical race studies, gender and queer theory, aesthetics and affect theory, and carceral studies. Her work draws from fields ranging from (post)colonial studies to phenomenology, to media and literature studies, especially with regard to the political conditions of slavery and mass incarceration. Apart from the Menino Survey, her current research explores the role of empathy in antiracist projects of political resistance and emancipation, with a focus on the carceral state.

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