
MICHELLE CHIHARA
Associate Professor of English
Whittier College
writing, media, culture, editing

In 2003, in Where I Was From, Didion tried to move away from that Victorian severity. She tried to relinquish her mother’s conservative faith in rituals and traditions. She tried to reimagine the organdy dresses and crystal necklaces as useless totems from a bygone world. Like formal dinners in the rainforest, they were nothing Quintana had to worry about. And yet she found nothing to replace them.
From Slouching Towards Los Angeles: Living and Writing by Joan Didion’s Light, edited by Steffie Nelson from Rare Bird Books. Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Chihara.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Research. Articles. Nonfiction.



RADICAL FLEXIBILITY: DRIVING FOR LYFT AND THE FUTURE OF WORK IN THE PLATFORM ECONOMY
Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory
November 2021
NEOLIBERAL GASLIGHTING, QUALITY JOURNALISM, AND PODCASTING
Post45: Contemporaries
August 2020