With a background in the world of theatrical entertainment and lighting design, my scholarship looks at film, television, and media from the perspective of rhetorical studies. Much of my work considers sites of intersectional identity, especially through the lenses of queer theory and queer rhetorics. I have a particular interest in horror and iterations of the Gothic, as well as cult media, inter- and metatextuality, and the grotesque. My theatrical design training informs my analyses of visual media and culture, and I have published on works such as Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Get Out, Cabin in the Woods, Hannibal, Supernatural, Justified, the work of Shirley Jackson, and more. My current research focuses on queer and transgressive rhetorics in contemporary horror television.

I am actively involved with several media studies organizations; I serve as the chair for the Southern Gothic area for the Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South, as well as the Past President of the Association for the Study of Buffy+. I am also series co-editor for Bloomsbury Press’s “B-TV: Television Under the Critical Radar” book series. My doctoral work is in the English Department at Georgia State University, with a focus on rhetoric and composition. I’m a graduate of the English MA program at Middle Tennessee State University; my Master’s thesis, directed by the late Dr. David Lavery, focused on the grotesque in Sofia Coppola’s “Young Girls” trilogy of films.

I have given numerous talks at both US and UK conferences, including the Popular Culture Association, BAFTSS, Fear 2000, SAMLA, LIT-TV at Edinburgh Napier University, and Slayage. My public scholarship includes multiple recent lectures for Profs & Pints on horror film and ghost stories, an invited lecture on camp and queer sensibilities for The Black Museum in Toronto, as well as film introductions, podcast appearances, guest blogs, and other mediums and projects that bridge the divide between academic and public spaces. 

My pronouns are she/ her/ hers. Like many academics, I am overly fond of both cats and coffee.

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Edited Collection:

Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Hell’s Under New Management, co-edited with Cori Mathis and Melissa Tyndall, Lexington Books, 2023.

Peer Reviewed Book Chapters:

“Halloween, Visual Storytelling, and Cinematographer Dean Cundey: Establishing the Visual Rhetoric of the Slasher.” Collection title forthcoming, edited by Shane H. Weathers, McFarland, 2026. (forthcoming)

“’I want freedom and power’: The Allegory of Queer Rhetorics in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.” Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Hell’s Under New Management, edited by Cori Mathis et al., Lexington Books, 2023, pp. 139-52.

“Wicked Creature(s): Delirium and Difference in The Witchcraft of Salem Village.” Shirley Jackson: A Companion, edited by Kristopher K. Woofter, Peter Lang Publishers, 2021, pp. 210-8.

“‘There is no singing in Supernatural!’: The Meta as Narrative Device in Supernatural.” Supernatural out of the Box: Essays on the Metatextuality of the Series, edited by Lisa Macklem and Dominic Grace, McFarland Press, 2020, 42-54.

 “The Transtextual Road Trip: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and Televisual Forebears.” Transmediating the Whedonverses: Essays on Text, Paratext, and Metatext, edited by Julie L. Hawk and Juliette C. Kitchens, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 167-99.

“Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017)—Smart Horror.” Horror: A Companion, edited by Simon Bacon, Peter Lang Publishers, 2019, pp. 127-34.

“Inscription and Subversion: The Cabin in the Woods and the Postmodern Horror Tradition.” Joss Whedon vs. Horror: Fangs, Fans and Genre in Buffy and Beyond, edited by Kristopher Woofter and Lorna Jowett, I.B. Tauris, 2019, pp. 123-40.

“Chapter 29: Justified: ‘The Promise.’” Television Finales: From Howdy Doody to Girls, edited by Douglas Howard and David Bianculli, Syracuse UP, 2018, pp. 198-93.

Other Book Chapters:

“Critical Reading, Critical Response.” The Guide to First-Year Writing, with Meagan E. Malone, 8th edition (digital), Fountainhead / TopHat, 2020.

“Chapter 3: Critical Reading, Critical Response, and Rhetorical Analysis.” The Guide to First-Year Writing, with Meagan E. Malone, 7th edition, Fountainhead Press, 2019, pp. 70-113.

“Episode Guide.” TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map of Supernatural, edited by Stacey Abbot and David Lavery, ECW Press, 2011, pp. 253-72.

Refereed Journal Articles:

“’A breach of individual separateness’: Multivalent Queerness in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 43, no. 1, Spring 2020, pp. 46-65.

“A Tribute to David Lavery: Television Canon, Television Creativity.” Critical Studies in Television, with Rhonda V. Wilcox et al., vol. 13, no. 4, 2018, pp. 455-469.

Book Reviews:

“The Marvel Studios Phenomenon: Inside a Transmedia Universe, Eds. Martin Flanagan et al.” Book Review. Reviewed in Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 51, no. 3, June 2018, pp. 812-815.

“The History of the Horror Fiction Boom in the 1970s and ‘80s: Review of Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ‘70s and ’80s Horror Fiction.” Book Review. Reviewed in Dead Reckonings: A Review Magazine for the Horror Field, vol. 22, Fall 2017, pp. 45-7.

“Southern Discomfort and the Ubiquitous Undead.” Book review. Reviewed in Dead Reckonings: A Review Magazine for the Horror Field, vol. 21, Spring 2017, pp. 30-2.

“Girls will be Ghouls: Monstrous Bodies: Feminine Power in Young Adult Horror Fiction by June Pulliam.” Book review. Reviewed in Dead Reckonings: A Review Magazine for the Horror Field, vol. 16, Fall 2014, pp. 42-4.

Other Publications:

“The Parodic Reprise of 80s Camp Queerness in American Horror Story: 1984.” In Medias Res: A Media Commons Project, 2 Apr. 2020, http://mediacommons.org/imr/content/parodic-reprise-80s-camp-queerness-american-horror-story-1984.

“Clock-less, Time-less?” Mercury, vol. 27, no. 2, Mar. 1998.

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Selected Presentations:

“Rhetorics of Fear: What Can We Learn from the Horrors in the Room?” Keynote address for the “Learning from Fear” Conference, University of Memphis, 25 Apr. 2025, Memphis, TN.

"'Conjuring spirits of the past...and the future": Permeable Temporalities and the Black Gothic in Sinners." Popular Culture / American Culture Association in the South Conference 2025, 10 Oct. 2025, Huntsville, AL.

“Transgressive Terrors: Rhetoric, Queerness, and Ideological Disruption in Contemporary Horror Television.” Queer Horror Conference 2025, 7 Feb. 2025, University of Pittsburg, Virtual Conference.

“’Are there actually any straight vampires?’: Contemporary Discursive Fan Rhetorics and the Recovery of Queerness in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Slayage Conference on the Study of Buffy+, 21 Jul. 2024, San Luis Obispo, CA.

“You Can Lead a Bisexual to Water but You Can’t Make Him Twink: Inconsistencies in Queer Representation in Teen Wolf.” Southwest Popular & American Culture Association Conference, 22 Feb. 2024, Albuquerque, NM.

“Paranormal Paranoia: Reflections on Paranormal and Pseudoscience TV.” Roundtable with Kristopher K. Woofter, Will Dodson, and Erin Gianinni. Southwest Popular & American Culture Association Conference, 23 Feb. 2024, Albuquerque, NM.

“’You record it, I’m going to enjoy it’: The Horror of Home Recording Technology in WNUF Halloween Special and VHYes.” Dead Media: Contemporary Horror and the Analogue: A BAFTSS Horror Studies SIG Symposium, 13 Jan. 2024, Virtual Conference.

“Using Social Annotation for Engagement and Equity.” Computers and Writing Conference, 24 Jun. 2023, Davis, CA.

“’It’s about making the best of what I have’: Womanhood and Aging in Ti West’s X and Pearl.” Popular Culture Association Conference, 5 Apr. 2023, San Antonio, TX.

“’They always started with a kill scene’: Reboots, Requels, and The Slasher Cycle.” Southwest Popular & American Culture Association Conference, 25 Feb. 2023, Albuquerque, NM.

“The Creep in Popular Culture.” Roundtable with Will Dodson, Erin Gianinni, and Steffen Hantke. Southwest Popular & American Culture Association Conference, 24 Feb. 2023, Albuquerque, NM.

“Horrors of In/Security: What the Slasher Movie Means.” Roundtable with Riccardo Retez, Payton McCarty-Simas, and Jacob McElroy. Southwest Popular & American Culture Association Conference, 25 Feb. 2023, Albuquerque, NM.

“First, we look at the past”: The Intersection of Superheroes and the Southern Gothic in Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger.” Popular Culture/ American Culture Association in the South, 14 Oct. 2022, New Orleans, LA. Panel Chair.

“Security is a little lax since everybody got their throats torn out”: Iterations of the Gothic in Marti Noxon’s Fright Night and Sharp Objects." Slayage Conference on the Study of Buffy+, 23 Jul. 2022, Virtual Conference (due to COVID-19). Panel Chair.

“’That’s no cock—that’s an act of God’: Reprisal and Remediation in American Horror Story: 1984.” Fear 2000 Conference, hosted by Sheffield Hallam University, 1 Jul. 2022, Virtual Conference (due to COVID-19).

“Fucking rich people!”: The Conflicting Rhetoric of Wealth and Agency in Ready or Not.” Popular Culture Association, 16 Apr. 2022, Virtual Conference (due to COVID-19).

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