About

Hi I'm Paulina (also known as @punuckish or ciszka). I'm a Filipino-Polish archaeologist and anthropology graduate student who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and loves comics and pop culture. My academic work focuses on studying the ways that the structure of buildings and landscapes aid or impede the learning of culture by children (see my academia account or my Day of Archaeology Post for more of what I do archaeology wise).

But on here I'm an over-educated fan of things; primarily comics, comics-related properties, cartoons, science-fiction, and fantasy. This means I take what I know and use it to critique what I love. This means that I recognize that literally everything I love is problematic. But it also means that I have tried explore the complexity of those things. Recently, I've brought that discussion to the public by organizing and moderating panels centered on anthropology/culture related topics at comic conventions such as Rose City Comic Con and GeekGirlCon These bridge my academic need to educate with my love of pop culture. I have video of my most recent panel from GeekGirlCon on mixed race characters in fiction and you can head over to the contact page if you'd like a copy.

I've also appeared on the podcast Curiosity in Focus, talking about similar things, and you can listen to it here. And if you're interested in my archaeology outreach work I appeared on the ArchyFantasies podcast, which you can listen to here.

I also write essays and reviews for Women Write About Comics and Ms. En Scene.