Austin, Stephanie (she/her/hers and they/them/theirs): graduated from Florida State University with a master’s in literature in the spring of 2019. They currently teach and tutor at Tallahassee Community College. In their classes and their own scholarship, they focus on gender and sexuality studies, disability, and prison abolition and their presentation in literature and pop culture. Their recent studies involve representations of disability and incarceration in horror and science fiction.

Bliss, Courtney: Courtney Bliss, MA, is an American Culture Studies PhD candidate at Bowling Green State University. She earned a MA in Popular Culture Studies from BGSU. She is a popular culture scholar whose work examines how popular culture has the potential to connect audiences with experiences similar to and different from their own. Her thesis, Reframing Normal: The Inclusion of Deaf Culture in the X-Men Comic Books, explores how American Deaf Culture has been unintentionally included in the X-Men comics since the first issue. Currently she is researching theater fandom through Hamilton: An American Musical and the phenomenon has become.

Carpenter, Stanford: Stanford W. Carpenter, PhD, is a former Archaeologist, sometime Comic Creator, and all time Culture Anthropologist who conducts research with an archaeological sensibility and uses comics, memes, and the spoken and written word to communicate with a surrealist vibe. His ethnographic research focuses on media with an emphasis on comics and journalism. He is currently developing Brother-Story and the Correspondent, an NPR affiliate podcast about comics, culture, and the lives of comic creators, critics, fans, and scholars focusing on the ways comics influence culture and culture influences comics.

Craig, Byron: Dr. Byron B. Craig is an Assistant Professor at Illinois State University. His current research includes the public controversy surrounding rap music and hip-hop culture as they intersect with race and anti-blackness in the late 20th to early 21st century. Additionally, his research includes bio-politics and the black/brown body and post-racial representations in film and television specifically since and as a response to, the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Dandridge, Jr., Victor: Victor Dandridge is a leading voice for innovation and production within the self-publishing market. He’s found acclaim with his own imprint, Vantage:Inhouse Productions, writing award-winning and critically regarded titles like The Trouble w/Love, The Samaritan, and Wonder Care Presents: The Kinder Guardians. His insights on narrative structure, comic book illustration, and publishing are honed, weekly, through the internet review series, Black, White & Read All Over, and is often the creator in residence for the pop culture podcast, Hall of Justice. Wanting not only to entertain, but also to educate, Victor launched his U Cre-8 Comics line — a unique bridge between comics and classroom fundamentals.

Di Minico, Elisabetta: Elisabetta works on fictional dystopia and on historical dystopian aspects of sociopolitical and cultural control, focusing her studies on violence, power, control and embodiment. Basically, she provocatively uses novels, comics, series and films to unveil the dystopian realities of our world. Elisabetta teaches History of Comics at IULM University of Milan and is a member of the international research group HISTOPIA.

Edge, Thomas: Thomas Edge is an associate teaching professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green State University. He is a graduate of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he earned his PhD in 2008. Dr. Edge’s published works have appeared in the Journal of Black Studies, Journal of American Culture, West Virginia History, and the edited volume, Barack Obama: Political Frontiers and Racial Agency (edited by Ama Mazama and Molefi Asante). He has previously taught at Northwestern University, Elms College, and Trinity College.

Fostar, Jonathan Blake: Jonathan Blake Fostar (he/him/his) can be found @dreamboybookclub.

Hayes, Leda: Leda Hayes is an ABD American Culture Studies PhD at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) who completed an MA in ACS at BGSU and a BA in English, minor in Film Studies, at Mount Holyoke College. While at BGSU Leda has been active in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies’s graduate student organizations, Culture Club and the Popular Culture Scholars Association; chaired the Ray Browne Conference for Popular Culture Studies (2019, 2020, 2021); and taught Introduction to Popular Culture, Introduction to American Studies, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States.

Hintz, Vanessa: Dr. Hintz, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist, who received her doctorate in clinical psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She works as an Assistant Professor at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI, in addition to maintaining a private therapy practice at Cornerstone Counseling Services. Dr. Hintz is an active proponent of multicultural counseling and theory and works dynamically to understand how individuals make meaning of the world within their various cultural contexts. She is also a self-proclaimed “Geek Therapist,” and incorporates elements of popular culture into treatment and training, when beneficial.

Hudson, Jacqueline: Jacqueline Hudson, PhD has recently earned a doctoral degree in American Culture Studies and holds a graduate certificate in public history at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Bowling Green, Ohio. Her interests are black music studies, black popular culture, black feminism, and museum studies. Her dissertation, I Am Every (Black) Woman: Negotiating Intersectionality in the Music Industry, explored how black women singers created and maintained agency against racist and sexist power structures in the music industry, Dr. Hudson is an Exhibitions Content Developer at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati.

Jordan, J. Scott: J. Scott Jordan, Ph.D., studies the neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy of cooperative behavior. He contributes to Sterling’s Popular Culture Psychology series and other outlets such as Pop Mythology (The welcoming Spiderverse: Finding yourself in a web of others). He has published a peer-reviewed, scientific song about the self (It’s hard work being No One), (song), (reviewed in Discover Magazine). He is a co-member of the WGLT Psych Geeks podcast and has appeared on the bodyselfmind podcast. He is co-organizer of ReggieCon and produces the Dark Loops Productions channel on YouTube. He is extremely proud of his international comic-book collection.

Levitt, Linda: Linda Levitt teaches communication and media studies at Stephen F. Austin State University. Her primary research sits at the intersection of memory studies and media, considering media’s role in shaping understandings of the past. She has published essays in Participations, Radical History Review, and Velvet Light Trap, along with book chapters in edited academic collections. Levitt’s book, Culture, Celebrity, and the Cemetery: Hollywood Forever, was published by Routledge in 2018.

Linares, Trinidad: Trinidad Linares (MA, Popular Culture) is the Library Associate for the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives. She is area chair for Subculture and 9/11 in Popular Culture for the Midwest PCA/ACA Conference. She was a guest speaker at the Frederick Douglass Institute’s Virtual Mini Conference at Slippery Rock University and the Asian Cultural Engagement Center at Virginia Tech. She has been published in Bitch, Meridians, and The Projector. Her chapter “Alternate, Not Arrested Development: Bryan Fuller’s Female Protagonists” is in Buffy to Batgirl: Essays on Female Power, Evolving Femininity and Gender Roles in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Morton, Elaine: Elaine Morton (she/her), a high school educator, holds a doctorate from York University in Toronto where her dissertation, entitled Emotionally Ever After: A Qualitative Analysis of Socio-Emotional Spaces Inhabited by Female Fairy Tale Characters and their Cinematic Adaptations, explores how gendered emotions affect behaviour across classic fairy tales and modern cinematic retellings.  Her current work focuses on the intersection of popular culture, gender, and mental health representation.

Ortega, Jeannine: Jeannine Ortega is an Orlando, FL native. She received her English Literature B.A. from University of Central Florida and Music B.A. from Rollins College. She holds a Master of Liberal Studies from Rollins College. Her interests include Latinx Literature and Media Studies.

Pariss, Leandra: Dr. Leandra Parris is an Assistant Professor in School Psychology at William & Mary. Dr. Parris focuses on peer relationships among middle and high school students within a trauma-informed framework. Her primary area of interest is coping with bullying and cyberbullying and the ways in which social media influences peer victimization and youth well-being. She also examines healthy romantic relationships among adolescents. Within the field, Dr. Parris focuses her efforts on social justice endeavors that help provide voice and empowerment to marginalized youth and families. She is currently the Co-Chair of the National Association of School Psychologists’ Social Justice Committee.

Profitt, Blue: Blue Profitt is a third-year Ph.D. student in English (Media, Cinema, and Digital Studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research interests include American coming-of-age cinema, gender and sexuality studies, and film phenomenology. Most recently, she has written and presented on feminine attachment to Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s young-adult novel, The Outsiders, and how to read Coppola’s adaptation of Rumble Fish (also based on a young-adult novel by Hinton) as a tactile film. Presently, she is developing a project on multisensory spectatorship during adolescence.

Roy, Debarati: Debarati Roy is a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY Binghamton’s English program where she focuses on South Asian cinema and literature, minority narratives, and diaspora studies. She is a former Humanities New York Public Humanities Fellow (2019-2020). She received her MA in English from University of Rochester. Before that, she graduated from University of Calcutta (India) with an MA in English Literature.

Shipley, Haley: Haley is currently pursuing a Masters in Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University. Haley’s primary focus right now is on the role that corn plays as a cultural actor in comparison to Superman and Clark Kent. But Haley is always excited for the chance to return to her first love of video games and explore the ways that they enlighten and impact our understanding of the world around us.

Simmons, Alex: Award-winning freelance writer Alex Simmons has written for Disney Books, Penguin Press, Simon and Schuster, DC Comics, and Archie Comics. He created and wrote the acclaimed adventure comic book series, Blackjack. His critically-acclaimed play, Sherlock Holmes & the Hands of Othello, was recently published in Black Thunder: An Anthology of Contemporary African American Drama. He is on the Board of Advisors for the Africa Cartoon Centre, in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department’s Speakers List, The New York State Alliance for Arts Education, The New York States Council on the Arts, and The Museum for Comics & Cartoon Art.

Trigg, Dylan: Dylan Trigg is an FWF Senior Researcher at the University of Vienna, Department of Philosophy. He earned his PhD at the University of Sussex (2009), MA at the University of Sussex (2005), and BA at the University of London, Birkbeck College (2004). He is the author of several books including Topophobia: a Phenomenology of Anxiety (2017); The Thing: a Phenomenology of Horror (2014); and The Memory of Place: a Phenomenology of the Uncanny (2012). His research interests include phenomenology, embodiment, and aesthetics.

Tuinstra, Hunter: Hunter Tuinstra (he/him) is a third year PhD student in Film and Media at Wayne State University. Hunter’s research primarily concerns contemporary Horror film, especially haunted house narratives and theories concerning space and place, but he is also interested in thinking about narratives concerning trauma, memory, and the Weird, and how these things shape our lived experience.

Walton, Jim: Jim Walton’s Broadway credits include And the World Goes ‘Round, Merrily We Roll Along, 42nd Street, Come from Away, and revivals of Sweeney Todd, The Music Man and Sunset Boulevard.  On PBS: Follies in Concert, Crazy for You, Company and Sondheim: The Birthday Concert. Film: Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened. Jim has written several musicals with his brother, Bob Walton, including MID-LIFE (The Crisis Musical), Double Trouble (A Musical Tour de Farce), and MID-LIFE 2! (#WhatDidIComeInHereFor?), all licensed through Concord Theatricals.  Jim is from Marion, Indiana and he graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music.

Wathare, Jaya: Jaya Wathare is a research scholar at Department of English, University of Mumbai, India and a recipient of SRSF Grant (2020-21) issued by the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. She has presented papers at many national and international seminars. She was awarded as the Best Student (2009) of the department during her graduation at Lady Shri Ram College and has done her Masters in English from the University of Delhi. Her areas of research interest are comics studies, popular culture, semiotics, audience studies and transmedia.

Wertsch, Tyler: Tyler is a PhD candidate in American Culture Studies at Bowling Green State University who does research on the intersection of memory studies and culture studies. Tyler is particularly interested in how texts in popular culture remediate and reconfigure the past within hegemonic, capitalist ideologies. If you’d like to chat about video games, films, or shows (especially ones that access and revise memory of the Cold War and/or Vietnam), send him an email at twertsc@bgsu.edu!

Wesselmann, Eric: Eric D. Wesselmann, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Illinois State University. He conducts research on the interface between psychology and popular culture. He has contributed chapters to books on diverse media, such as comics (Black Panther Psychology, Joker Psychology, Wonder Woman Psychology) and TV shows (Star Trek Psychology, Supernatural Psychology). He has participated in convention panels at the Comics Studies Society, Comic Con Revolution, Wizard World Chicago, and San Diego Comic Con. He is a co-member of the WGLT Psych Geeks podcast series and curates a film series for The Normal Theater (Normal, IL) called Film CULTure.

Whatley, Jack: Jack Whatley is a PhD student at Bangor University, UK, and he is the pioneer of the Ex Absurdum philosophical argument, having presented on it at multiple conferences, as well as being experienced with running TTRPGs such as Dungeons and Dragons, and focuses his academic studies in that area, analysing ethical issues and philosophy through the lens of fantasy.