Honours BA, English and Theatre, University of Toronto, 1985
Previous Work Experience
Assistant/Associate Professor of English, Algoma University College, Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, 1992-2003
Representative Publications
A Supernatural Politics:Essays on Social Engagement, Fandom and the Series. (Co-edited with Lisa Macklem). McFarland, forthcoming.
Supernatural out of the Box: Critical Essays on the Metatextuality of the Series. (Co-edited with Lisa Macklem). McFarland, 2020.
“Doing It: Sex and the Monster.” In The Many Lives of It: Essays on the Stephen King Horror Franchise. Ed. Ron Riekki. McFarland, 2020. Pages 44-55.
Canadian Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Bridging the Solitudes. (Co-edited with Amy J. Ransom). Palgrave, 2019.
“From Wonder to Horror: Stephen King’s Revival and Robertson Davies’s Deptford Trilogy.”
In The Modern Stephen King Canon: Beyond Horror. Ed. Philip L. Simpson and Patrick McAleer. Lexington, 2018. Pages 167-80.
“Collecting, Preserving, Hoarding: Wimbledon Green vs The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists.” The Dalhousie Review vol. 98 no.2 (2018); pages 241-47.
The Canadian Alternative: Cartoonists, Comics and Graphic Novels. (Co-edited with Eric Hoffman). University Press of Mississippi, 2017.
The Science Fiction of Phyllis Gotlieb: A Critical Reading. McFarland, 2015.
Representative Conferences
“The Politics of Disengagement in Seth’s Clyde Fans.” Comics Studies Society conference, Ryerson University, Toronto, July 27, 2019.
“Contingent Storyworlds in Seth’s Clyde Fans.” Joint International Conference of Graphic Novels, Comics and Bandes Dessinées, Manchester, England, June 25, 2019.
“The Fantastic in Seth’s Clyde Fans.” Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Toronto, June 8, 2019.
“Chester Brown’s Self-Revision in The Playboy.” Canadian Society for the Study of Comics conference, Toronto, May 10, 2018.
“’A creature built [. . .] from shadow and hardware’: Peter Watts’s Frankensteinian Figures.” International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando Florida, March 15, 2018.
“’Lenie Clarke is God’: Religion and Peter Watts.” Space Vampires and the Future of
‘I’: The Fiction of Peter Watts symposium, University of Toronto, November 11, 2017.
Scholar Keynote Address, “What I Do, and Why (I Think) It Matters,” Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Toronto, June 3, 2017.
“Death without God in Anthony Trollope’s The Fixed Period.” Christianity and Literature Study Group (CLSG) sessions of the Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, May 29, 2017.
“Orwellian Rhetoric in The Fixed Period.” Popular Culture Association (PCA) conference, San Diego, April 13, 2017.
“The Violence Inherent in the System: Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the Critique of Authority.” International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando Florida, March 23, 2017.
Areas of Teaching
Medieval literature
Shakespeare
Early Modern Literature
Nineteenth-Century Literature
Children’s Literature
Science Fiction. Fantasy, Graphic Novels
Research Specialization(s)
Science Fiction and Fantasy, especially Canadian
Comics and Graphic Novels
Popular Culture
Awards and Recognition
2017: Recipient, Brescia Award for Excellence in Research