Elizabeth Dayton

Elizabeth Dayton

Office: 1120 Rolfe Hall

Email: edayton@g.ucla.edu

Biography

Elizabeth Dayton is a PhD candidate in Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles analyzing how art, performance, and cultural production from sex working/trading communities function as both projects of re-narration of dominant narratives of sex work in mainstream media as well as projects for community survival, mutual aid and futurity. Though typically understood as contemporary art criticism, Dayton aligns her work and analytic of art produced within sex working/trading communities as less “criticism” and more “contextualized and curious enthusiasm.”  When not nerding-out on art, aesthetics, and fashion you can typically find her wherever her small dog Fleur is- though realistically she should probably be writing.

Research Interests

Sex Workers’ Rights and Prison Abolition Studies, Critical Trafficking Studies, Queer Studies and Queer of Color Critique, Performance Studies, Affect Studies, and Contemporary Art Critique + Aesthetics.