1. People & Departments
  2. Washington College
  3. Stephanie Brown

Stephanie Brown

Faculty
Communication & Media Studies Dept
  • Assistant Professor

Stephanie Brown Headshot

Before joining the faculty at Washington College, I taught courses in Media, Communication, and Gender and Women's Studies at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and Saint Louis University. I received my B.A. in English from Indiana University, my M.A. in Television, Radio, and Film from Syracuse University and my PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before starting my doctorate, I worked for the  New York Television Festival and for VOX, a voice-over talent agency in Los Angeles

 

Education:
 
  • Ph.D., Modern Chinese Literature, University of Illinois,
    Urbana-Champaign, 2018
  • M.A., East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, Syracuse University, 2008
  • B.A., English, Indiana University,

 

Academic Expertise
 
  • Stand-Up Comedy
  • Women in Comedy
  • Intersectional Representation in Popular Media
  • Social Media Humor
  • Body Positivity/Fat Positivity in Popular Media
My research tends to combine gender, power, popular culture, emerging media, and the comedy industries. My current book project explores identity, power, and labor in stand-up comedy as a media industry. Other ongoing projects include theorizing the political aesthetic of humor on TikTok, live comedy podcasting as an archive of marginalized voices, and the desktop documentary's potential to explore pop culture and interpersonal relationships and community building.
 

In addition to teaching and research, I also am an active member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. As a part of the society, I produce segments for The Journal of Cinema and Media Studies' Aca-Media Podcast, serve of the programming committee, and serve on the steering committee of the Critical Pegagogy Scholarly Interest Group. 

 

Additional Information

Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication and Media, 2018-2021, West Chester University

Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication, 2017-2018, Saint Louis University

“Laughing To Keep from Crying: Abbott Elementary’s Intervention in the Teacher Demoralization Crisis” in Television Comedy and Cultural Crisis eds Holly Holladay and Chandler Classen. 2024. 

"Ungrading at the Intersection of Labor, Precarity, and Mental Health" Journal of Cinema and Media Studies Teaching Dossier, 2024. 

The Gendered Gatekeeping of Authenticity in Spaces of Live Stand-Up Comedy. Feminist Media Histories (2020) 6 (4): 42–67. 

“Millennial fandom and the failures of ‘Switched at Birth”s sexual assault education campaign." Transformative Works and Cultures. 26 March 2018. 

"TV Critics and Taste Culture, Or Why Everyone Ignored Oxygen’s Funny Girls" in Flow Journal 23.05. 27 March 2017. 

CMS 201 - Contemporary Popular Film and Teleivsion 

CMS 250 - Intermediate Comm and Media Theory

CMS 294 - Stand-Up Comedy and the History of Popular Media

I tend to teach and advise around the politics of popular media representation- especially around gender and sexuality. I also work with students on digital media production, social media analysis and content creation, television and film, and fan studies.