Inter-University Master of Arts in Women & Gender Studies

Inter-University Master of Arts in Women & Gender Studies

Graduate Faculty Profile, 2008-09.

Name: _Michele Byers.______

Institution: Mount Saint Vincent University ______

Saint Mary’s University ____X_

Department: _Sociology & Criminology______

Office: _MS413-A______

Telephone: 420-5869______

Email: __(*** best way to reach me as I am on leave until April 15, 2009).______

Teaching Areas:

Media and Communication Studies, Contemporary Social Theory, Crime & Media, Media and Identity, Feminist Theories and Methodologies

Research Areas:

Television Studies, Media and Communication Studies, Canadian Media, Girl Studies, Critical Theory, Jewish Studies, Performance Studies, Ethnicity and Identity, Popular Culture, Third Wave Feminism.

More specifically, I’m interested in the ways that identities are constructed across various mediated sites, especially television. I work from a post-structuralist perspective that considers identities to be multiple and contradictory, historically grounded, and intersectional (in terms of, for example, gender, racial and ethnicization, ability, class, sexuality, age, nationality, and so on).

You can find a pretty up to date version of my CV at http://www.smu.ca/academic/arts/sociology/bios/byers.html

Some of the work I am currently involved in focuses on:

·  Television and the production of identity

·  The production of ethnicized subjects in Canadian TV

·  Television and Canadian youth cultures

·  The Jewish Princess as a neoliberal subject

·  The murder of Reena Virk

·  Ethnic youth in Halifax

·  Third Wave feminism

·  I have written about a lot of TV series, including: Arrested Development, Beverly Hills 90210, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Canadian Idol, C.S.I., Curb Your Enthusiasm, Degrassi, Dexter, Drop the Beat, Durham County, E.R., Little Mosque on the Prairie, My So-Called Life, Party of Five, Ready or Not, Renegadepress.com, Roseanne, Sex and the City, The O.C.

Thesis Committee Availability (2008-09):

(please indicate by ‘yes’ or ‘no’)

Supervisor ______Yes______

2nd Reader ______Yes______

External ______Yes______