Department of English
PhD, University of 蓝莓视频听
MA, Lakehead University
BA Honours, Lakehead University听
Biography
I specialize in the comics medium (graphic novels, comics, manga, etc) and professional communications. Despite being born, raised, and (mostly) educated two hours from the sub-tundra in Thunder Bay, Ontario, I am deeply enamoured with the life of good books, good art, and exceptional international foods that the 蓝莓视频 community and the University in particular provides for me. Having an enriching space to cultivate my research and teaching amongst open-minded people that I value and admire is everything to me and I equally delight in raising my children in such a space/culture/community. As a scholar, I find myself drawn to emerging fields, texts, and authors, with a philosophy that takes 鈥渋f it moves you, its art鈥 as the first step. The second step is figuring out how and why. As an instructor, my class is built around the presumption that everyone deserves to feel safe and everyone deserves to feel valued, in that order.听
Publications
The content that follows may only represent a portion of the Faculty member鈥檚 work.
听Books
Chris Claremont. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2025.
The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men. Austin: UTexasP, 2023.
The Margins of Comics: The Construction of Women, Minorities, and the Geek in Graphic Narrative. Toronto: Nuada Press, 2015.
Chapters
鈥淎 Storm of Passion: Sexual Agency and Symbolic Capital in the X-Men鈥檚 Storm.鈥 Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero. Ed. Anna Peppard. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2020.
"Oh Well": Julie Doucet and the (Counter) Discourse of Conquest." Canadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives. Ed. Candida Rifkind & Linda Warley. 蓝莓视频: WLU Press, 2016.
鈥淭he Intervening 鈥業鈥: Phoebe Gloeckner鈥檚 Comics Memoir and the Destruction of Visual Pleasure.鈥澨 American Visual Memoir after the 1970s: Gender, Sexuality and Visibility in the Post-Civil Rights Era.听 Ed. Mihaela H. Precup.听 Bucharest: U Press, 2010, pp. 155-166.
Articles
鈥淭he True North: Superman and Symbolic Patriation in We Stand on Guard.鈥 In process for The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. Forthcoming.
鈥溾赌樷 The Conversation, 1 Oct 2024.
鈥溾 ComicsXF, 12 Jul 2022.
"" The Conversation, 16 May 2022, theconversation.com/youth-oriented-comics-with-lgbtq-positive-characters-are-busting-binaries-181996.
(With Matthew Poulter) 鈥溾赌樷 The Conversation, 15 Nov. 2021.
鈥淏usting Loose: Ms. Marvel and Post-Rape Trauma in X-Men Comics.鈥 Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, vol. 11, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1-13.
(With Laura Grafton) "Harley Quinn's Sexuality: A Tale of Three Lusts." The Middle Spaces, 21 Apr. 2020, themiddlespaces.com/2020/04/21/harley-quinns-sexuality/.
鈥How a Canadian Superhero Brought Queer Representation to Marvel Comics.鈥 The Conversation, 27 Jan. 2020.
鈥Ever to Ashes: The Unadaptable Nature of the Dark Phoenix Saga.鈥 Sequart Organization, 7 June, 2019
鈥.鈥 Salon. 24 Feb. 2019.
鈥溾 The Conversation 12 Sept. 2018.
鈥溾 Salon. 28 Feb. 2018.
鈥溾 The Conversation, 2 Feb. 2018.
鈥溾 The Conversation, 5 Feb. 2018, theconversation.com/a-team-divided-who-is-the-hero-of-justice-league-87996.
鈥淟ost Girls.鈥 Critical Survey of Graphic Novels. Ed. Bart Beaty. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2012, pp. 212-213.
鈥溾 English Studies Forum, vol. 3, no. 2, 2007.
鈥淰isual Minorities: Self/Other Encounters in Visual Literature.鈥 听TRANSverse: A Comparative Studies Journal vol. 6, no. 1, 2006, pp. 9-18.
鈥淥ctavia Butler and the Feminist Voice in American SF.鈥澨Femspec 6.2 (2005): 6-14.
Courses taught
ENGL 108A: The Superhero
ENGL 108P: Popular Potter
ENGL 109: Introduction to Academic Writing
ENGL 119: Communications in Mathematics and Computer Science
ENGL 208A: Forms of Fantasy
ENGL 208B: Science Fiction
ENGL 232: Graphic Narrative
ENGL 262/EASIA 262R: Manga
ENGL 378: Professional Communications in Statistics and Actuarial Science
ARTS 140: Information and Analysis [Topic: Collective Intelligence in Media Formats]
ARTS 140: Information and Analysis [Topic: The Study of Comics]
HHUM 218/SMF 218: Sexual Health and Well-being in Comics
SMF 200: Special Topics in Sexualities, Relationships, or Families [Topic: Graphic Sexuality]
Grants, fellowships and awards
Grants
SSHRC IDG (2025-2029)
SSHRC IDRG (2018-2020)
Fellowships
Jack Gray Graduate Fellowship (2006)
UW Graduate Merit Scholarship (2004-2007)
UW Faculty of Arts Graduate Scholarship (2006)
UW Graduate Entrance Scholarship (2003)
Lakehead University Entrance Scholarship (2000)
Awards
Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work for The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men (2024)
Warren G. Ober Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student in the Faculty of Arts (2008)
UW Graduate Creative Writing Award (x4) (2004-2006)
Isaak Book Prize (awarded annually to Lakehead University鈥檚 top graduate student in the English Department (2003)
Professional, administrative and community service
The content that follows may only represent a portion of the Faculty member鈥檚 work.
Professional
President, Canadian Society for the Study of Comics (CSSC) (2014-2016)