Darlene Hampton, Ph.D
Academic Advisor
Visiting Assistant Professional Specialist 
Darlene Hampton is an academic advisor in the University of Notre Dame’s First Year of Studies (FYS) and holds the rank of visiting assistant professional specialist. She primarily advises students who intend to pursue majors in the College of Engineering, the College of Science, the College of Arts and Letters, and the Mendoza College of Business.
Hampton received Bachelor's degrees in both Theatre Arts and English Literature from the University of Oregon in Eugene, OR where she went on to earn both Master's and Doctoral degrees in English with a concentration in Film and Media Studies. Her scholarly work is focused on the study of gender and the representation, practices, and cultures of media fans. Using largely discourse analysis and theories of performance, she explores the significant role that mass media texts play in both American culture and our own lives as individuals and members of communities. She examines media fan practices as sites of cultural work and identity performance and is particularly interested in the relationship between patriarchal and post-feminist ideologies of gender and the valuing and policing of fan practices in the public sphere.
Hampton joined First Year Studies in the summer of 2015. In addition to her work as an academic advisor, she holds concurrent faculty appointments in American Studies and Film, Television, and Theatre where she enjoys teaching courses on gender, media, and fan cultures. Her current research focuses on both the significance of gendered representations of media fans and the role of social networking technologies such as Tumblr on the evolution of fan practices and cultures.