WRITING
ESSAYS & PROFILES
I write essays about women artists, Hollywood, & adaptation for both academic and public-facing audiences.
Frida: Creativity, Trauma, and the Woman Artist
A Critical Companion to Julie Taymor
December 2023
This essay considers art and creativity as forces for healing and self-expression following moments of intense personal and physical trauma as reflected in Taymor’s film and in its reception post #MeToo.
The Miscarriage of Frida Kahlo
Nursing Clio
December 2023
What the film and its dramatization of Kahlo’s pregnancy loss ultimately reveals is that we have made-- and continue to make-- Frida Kahlo’s body our business.
Elizabeth Taylor
Senses of Cinema
November 2023
Not unlike her contemporary Marilyn Monroe, it sometimes seems like Elizabeth Taylor’s multifacetedness transcends the capabilities of life writing: how are we to reduce women so iconic, so visually ubiqitous, into words?
Mary Blair & Kate Greenaway
The Literary Encyclopedia
July 2023
I contributed two biographical essays to The Literary Encyclopedia in response to a call for entries on authors and illustrators of children's books. My entry on Disney concept artist and Little Golden Books illustrator Mary Blair is part of my ongoing scholarship on the artist. My entry on Greenaway reflects my interest in Victorian women artists and illustrators.
Wyler's Wuthering Heights: Genre, Transnationalism, and the Adaptation of the Victorian Novel
ReFocus: The Films of William Wyler
March 2023
I discuss William Wyler’s approach to adapting the classic Victorian novel, including what drew Wyler to Brontë’s fictional realm in the first place, as well as the generic consequences of this transnational film adaptation.
To Ride Into 'Paradise': Lana Del Rey's EP at 10
PopMatters
December 2022
What’s most striking about Lana Del Rey’s Paradise EP and its music videos are the ways they cement her transgressive and hallucinatory aesthetic.
ESSAYS FORTHCOMING & IN PROGRESS
The Comeback of Miriam Hopkins
Comebacks: The Return of the Aging Film Star
Forthcoming
"This is a true story": Women Artists and Narratives of Disability in Ida Lupino’s Never Fear
Women Who Write Our Worlds: Shaping Global Screen Culture
Forthcoming
Blood and Soap: Kenneth Anger, Karina Longworth, and the Women of Hollywood Babylon
Women and Hollywood: Tales of Inequality, Abuse, and Resistance in the Dream Factory
Forthcoming
Examining the Legacy of Disney Artist Mary Blair
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media
Forthcoming
Mary Blair and the Making of Cinderella
'The story of ‘Once upon a time’: A celebration of 100 years of Disney
Under review
Unpacking the Frida Kahlo Barbie
Barbie and Material Culture
Under review
DOCTORAL DISSERTATION
Imperialized Antiquities: Victorian Encounters with the Ancient Near East in the British Museum
My dissertation examines the relationship between Victorian Britain and the Ancient Near East as produced and mediated through the British Museum. I consider how this encyclopedic museum narrativized antiquity for consumption by British spectators in an imperial context. This project unveils the layers of narrative that inform and are informed by the discovery, acquisition, and reception of artifacts from Ancient Lycia and Assyria. These narratives ultimately reveal the relationship between British imperial archaeology and the museum space. In addition, I showcase how these institutional practices and spaces illuminated Victorian Britain’s place within the Great Chain of Empires initiated by their Assyrian predecessors.
I used this opportunity to pursue a project related to the Victorian reception of antiquity, working to fulfill a lifelong curiosity about how we, centuries later, have continued to engage with and react to the mythologies and material remains of the past. These questions have been a persistent presence at my writing desk and in my classroom, applicable to antiquity just as much as they are to Hollywood and stars of the art world, ranging from Artemisia Gentileschi to Frida Kahlo.
