ABOUT
Hi, I'm Gabrielle Stecher. I'm interested in the stories we tell about women artists.
I am an Associate Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Lecturer in the Department of English at Indiana University Bloomington. I earned my Ph.D. from the University of Georgia where I specialized in feminist and image theories, alongside Victorian literature and visual culture.
My research, writing, and teaching largely focus on narratives about women artists and their creative labor.
In my work, the category of the woman artist includes both visual and performing artists, ranging from illustrators and painters to actors and filmmakers. The majority of my scholarship centralizes nineteenth- and twentieth-century figures, and I am particularly interested in the lives and works of women active in Classical Hollywood. I often focus on embodiment and frequently write about aging, commodification, disability, and trauma. Though I study a wide range of genres, I'm deeply invested in the study of women artists' life writing, including autobiographies, biographies, and biopics. When I'm not writing about women artists, you can find me studying adaptations and retellings, especially of ancient and Victorian literature.
I have taught interdisciplinary composition, intensive writing, & literature courses at the University of Georgia and Indiana University Bloomington.
At IUB, my latest digital projects course “Woman, Image, Myth: The Mediated Lives & Afterlives of Marilyn Monroe” asks students to interrogate how and why the Hollywood icon has continued to dominate our cultural imagination. In addition to my courses on Monroe, I have taught courses centered on feminist theory and criticism, ancient reception, Hollywood fiction, and narratives about women painters.
In addition to my teaching, I also work as an Associate Director of Undergraduate Teaching in the English Department at IU Bloomington.
In this role, I train and support graduate student instructors teaching composition and intensive writing courses. As part of my administrative work and service to the profession, I write and present often on topics related to teaching and learning, including active learning, creativity, digital pedagogy, instructional design, and multimodality.