Melissa Ames
Introduction My EIU Story Education & Training Conference Presentations Community Publications Funding & Grants Frequently Taught Courses Research & Creative Interests Professional Affiliations

Melissa Ames

Professor of English and Director of English Education, Interim Film Studies Coordinator Office: 3821 - Coleman Hall
Phone: 217-581-2428
Email: mames@eiu.edu

INTRODUCTION

Spring 2023 Office Hours:

T 10:00-10:30am; 12:30pm-1:30pm; 3:30-4:00pm  

W 12:00pm-1:00pm

R  11:30am-12:30pm; 6:00-6:30pm

Additional virtual office hours are also available.  To schedule virtual office hours, use the link below and a Zoom invite will be generated so that you can access our video conference at your selected time: https://calendly.com/melissa_ames/english-education. If you are scheduling your initial meeting to set up an English Education Folder please fill out this quick form as well. 

Melissa Ames completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2007 at Wayne State University in 20th Century American Literature and Culture specializing in media studies, television scholarship, popular culture, pedagogy, composition, digital rhetoric, & Internet studies. Her previous degrees – a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts from University of Detroit-Mercy – shape her interest in merging academic media scholarship and pedagogy.

Her work has been published in a variety of anthologies and journals and ranges in topic from Television Study, New Media, and Fandom to American Literature and Feminist Art. She is excited about her recent and upcoming publications which include her books Women & Language: Gendered Communication Across Media (McFarland, 2011), Time in Television Narrative: Exploring 21st Century Programming (University Press of Mississippi, 2012), How Pop Culture Shapes the Stages of a Woman's Life: From Toddlers-in-Tiaras to Cougars-on-the-Prowl (Palgrave, 2016), and Small Screen, Big Feels: Television & Cultural Anxiety in 21st Century Programming (U Kentucky Press, 2020), & Hashtag Activism Interrogated and Embodied: Case Studies on Social Justice Movements (U Colorado/Utah State Press, 2021); chapters in Grace Under Pressure: Grey’s Anatomy Uncovered (Cambridge Scholars, 2008), Writing (and) the Digital Generation: Essays on How Interactive Digital Media is Changing Rhetoric and Writing (McFarland Press, 2009), Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, and the Twilight Saga (Lang's Mediated Youth Series, 2010), Fabricating the Body (Cambridge Scholars, 2014),  Managing Phobias (Toronto Press, 2016), Adventures in Shondaland (Duke, 2017), Young Adult Literature in the Composition Classroom (McFarland, 2018), The Vampire Diaries Collection (McFarland, 2021); as well as articles in The Journal of Dracula Studies (2011), The Encyclopedia of Women & Popular Culture (2013), The High School Journal (2013), The Journal of Popular Culture (2014), Pedagogy (2017), Computers & Writing (2017), & First Monday (2021).

Many of her musings on popular culture can be found on her blog: smallscreenscholar.blogspot.com

 

 

 

My EIU Story

Informal writing on popular culture can be found on my blog.

 

 

 

Education & Training

PhD, Wayne State University
MA, University of Michigan
BA, University of Detroit Mercy

 

 

 

Conference Presentations

To view all conference presentations, please visit my curriculum vitae.

 

 

 

Community

 

Currently serving as the Robeson Elementary School PTA President

 

 

Publications

For full publication details, please see my curriculum vitae.

 

 

 

Funding & Grants

 

For more information on service work, please see my curriculum vitae

 

 

Frequently Taught Courses

ENG 1001; ENG 1002; ENG 3008; ENG 3401; ENG 3402; ENG 4742; ENG 4801

 

 

 

Research & Creative Interests

Cultural studies, media studies, popular culture, television scholarship, Internet studies, twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature, pedagogy, postmodern and feminist theory.

 

 

 

Professional Affiliations

 

For a full list, please see my curriculum vitae