BIO
Coming from a background of theatrical entertainment lighting design, I am currently a PhD candidate in English with a focus in Rhetoric and Composition studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, and I’m a graduate of the English MA program at Middle Tennessee State University. My particular scholarly interests, though varied, center around rhetoric in film, television, and popular culture. My Master’s thesis, directed by the late Dr. David Lavery, focused on the grotesque in Sofia Coppola’s “Young Girls” trilogy of films.
My background in theatrical design deeply informs my work with visual culture. I have published work on such varied topics as Get Out, Justified and Cabin in the Woods, and I was a featured plenary speaker at the 2016 Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses in London, England. I have presented my research at regional, national, and international academic conferences and I am particularly active in the Whedon Studies Association, the Popular Culture Association, and the Popular Culture Association of the South.
My admittedly varied research interests include cult media, the grotesque and the southern gothic, horror film and television, visual and sonic rhetoric, and queer and feminist studies; I am particularly interested in where these modes and methods intersect in order to interrogate normative identity structures in fascinating and complex ways. My doctoral dissertation, which is currently in progress, focuses on rhetoric in contemporary queer horror television.
I also currently serve as the Associate Director of The Writing Studio @ Georgia State University, where our staff of over 40 peer tutors serves the entire University community at all stages of writing.
Like many academics, I am overly fond of both cats and coffee.