Mark Redondo Villegas

Mark Redondo Villegas serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. His scholarly and creative work is deeply rooted in community engagement, focusing on Filipino American cultural expressions, especially through hip hop. Villegas employs interdisciplinary approaches to examine race, empire, and representation, blending academic research with filmmaking and community collaboration to amplify marginalized narratives.

He earned his Ph.D. in Culture and Theory from the University of California, Irvine and an M.A. in Asian American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Additionally, he was a postdoctoral fellow for the Inclusion Imperative’s Visiting Faculty Fellowship Program at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County's Dresher Center for the Humanities in 2021.

Villegas's research investigates Filipino American engagements with hip hop as a site for racial and cultural self-determination. His book Manifest Technique: Hip Hop, Empire, and Visionary Filipino American Culture (2021) argues that hip hop has been central to Filipino Americans' exploration of their place in history. Current projects examine "geek" elements in hip hop (comics, anime, sci-fi) and Filipino American visual culture from the 1970s-1990s, revealing how communities crafted identity through everyday aesthetics.

His scholarly articles, spanning 2015-2022, consistently analyze Filipino American contributions to hip hop through lenses of militarization, futurism, and spirituality. These works demonstrate interdisciplinary reach across cultural studies, ethnic studies, and musicology, highlighting how hip hop functions as a critical space for examining race, empire, and community resilience in Filipino American contexts.

Villegas has received the following honor:

• Inclusion Imperative’s Visiting Faculty Fellowship Program at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County's Dresher Center for the Humanities (2021)

Throughout his career, Villegas has mentored students through community-based projects and conferences, such as the 2014 anthology-related event at UC Irvine that brought together students, scholars, and artists. His grant-funded work includes the postdoctoral fellowship at UMBC, which supported his research on inclusion in humanities.

While not affiliated with a formal lab, Villegas collaborates extensively with community organizations, artists, and scholars through initiatives like the Empire of Funk anthology project and documentary filmmaking, creating networks that bridge academic and community spaces.