In her most recent work, Associate Professor of English Diana Mafe examines the implications of race and gender in speculative television, comic books, and video games.

Her article "It's the Master! (Step in Time): Hearts of Darkness and Postcolonial Paradoxes in Doctor Who" (The Journal of Popular Culture 48.3, June 2015) reads the three concluding episodes of Doctor Who: Series 3, informally known as the Master Trilogy, as a postcolonial reimagining of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Her article " 'We Don't Need Another Hero': Agent 355 as an Original Black Female Hero in Y: The Last Man" (African American Review 48.1-2, Spring/Summer 2015) argues that the black female character Agent 355 is the definitive hero and primary object of desire in the comic book series Y: The Last Man, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

And her article "Race and the First-Person Shooter: Challenging the Video Gamer in Bioshock Infinite" (Camera Obscura 30.2, September 2015) reads the first-person shooter (FPS) Bioshock Infinite as a rare example of a video game that challenges its player through its representations of race.