Education
Ph.D. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. Sociology and Equity Studies in Education. Specialization in Feminist Studies and Gender Issues. November 2000.
M.S.W. McGill University. School of Social Work. November 1995.
Special B.S.W. McGill University. School of Social Work. November 1994.
B.F.A. Concordia University. Fine Arts (Theater). Specialization in Drama in Education. June 1993.
Research Interests
Recent Research and other Projects
This auto-theoretical book considers television as a project of entertainment, education, politics, and capitalism, through which I have sought and sometimes found myself in stories, making use of them in ways unintended by their makers. It will be a work of critical remembrance, rooted in my lived experience as a spectator, fan, and scholar (often all at once), tangled up in theory, literature, music, and other artifacts of popular culture and brought into dialogue with TV as artifact and text. This work emerges out of my five and a half decades long entanglement with the television medium and my endless fascination with its circular histories and stories.
Monster Fest is a four-day international festival focused on the construction of monsters and monstrosity. Through a combination of academic and public-facing events, the festival brings scholars, students, artists, and community members together to examine the cultural, historical, and political significance of monstrosity across diverse lenses, including gender, race, sexuality, ability, religion, and Indigeneity. The interdisciplinary and inclusive commitments that inform Monster Fest reflect the fast-expanding and exciting field of Monster Studies. Like the hybrid and shape-shifting figures it explores, Monster Studies evolves and expands in proportion to the diverse perspectives and experiences that enrich it.
https://news.smu.ca/news/2025/10/29/smu-monster-fest-explores-diversity-of-monstrous-topics
https://nscad.ca/nscad-students-bring-the-horror-to-monster-fest/
#SMUvies had its first articulation in the 2023 Yellowjackets Halloween event planned by Dr. Lindsay Macumber: three panelists followed by a substantial Q&A, with pizza, book prizes, and costumes. In February of 2024 we had a second event, now under the new “brand”—Let’s Go to the #SMUvies—featuring a panel on the Barbie Movie and a Barbie box photo booth. Since then, we have run several other events, #PopDivas in September 2024, #Queer4Fear in partnership with SMU Pride in October 2024, Sing-along with Frozen at the Halifax Central Library in December 2024, Reality-TV dating shows in February 2025, and a lunch & learn on Dark Romance, run by two students (Jodie Hamilton, WGST MA, and Jade Newell, Philosophy Honour’s / WGSS Minor) in April 2025. 2026 saw a scaled back version of #SMUvies with one event—SMUsicals, run by Drs. Mary Hale and Emma McClure—held in the winter term of 2026. We hope to have more events in 2026-27.
Teaching Areas
Current Courses (2026-27)
Other Courses Taught
Directed Reading Courses Taught
Violence in the Media
Bodies and Popular Culture
The Media and Feminism
Celebrity Stalking
Feminist TV Studies
Fairy Tales and Gender Identity
Fan Cultures and Auto-ethnography
Feminist Theory
Atlantic Canadian Film & TV
Performativity
Deconstruction
Gender and Drag
Queer Theory
Queer Identity and Media Analysis
Gender and Science Fiction
Feminist Psychoanalytic Film Theory
Narrative Methodology
Queer (Summer) Camp
Feminist Media Studies
Criminality & Motherhood on TV
Alcoholism and Addiction on TV
Research Creation
Critical Media Studies 1
Critical Media Studies 2
Neuroqueer Femme-inisms
Queering Gender & Sexuality Studies
Trauma & Kink
Affect theory
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Byers, M., & Collins, R. E. “The Dead and the Abhorred: The Return of Mother-Blame in Contemporary Serial Killer Narratives.” Crime Media Culture 18(3), 2021:466-481.
“Who (the) girls are: trans identities and gender nonconformity in middle grade fiction.” Girlhood Studies 11(1). 2018: 92–107.
“ ‘Fats,’ Futurity, and the contemporary YA Novel.” Fat Studies, special issue on fatness and temporality, edited by Crystal Kotow. 2018: 159-69
Gannon, Susanne, Susan Walsh, Michele Byers and Mythili Rajiva. “Deterritorializing collective biography.” QSE 2012: 1-15
“Jewish Girls in British Cinema.” Journal of European Popular Culture 3(2). Oct. 2012: 169–80.
“The Stuff of Legend: T/Selling the Story of Reena Virk.” Canadian Ethnic Studies 41-2(3-1), 2012: 27-48.
Crocker, Diane and Michele Byers. “Feminist Cohorts and Waves: Attitudes of Junior Female Academics.” International Journal of Women’s Studies 35. 2012: 1–11.
“Speaking about the Nation: Critiques from the Canadian Margins.” Critical Studies in Television. 6(2). 2011: 141–53.
“Post-Jewish?: Theorizing the Emergence of Jewishness in Canadian Television.” Contemporary Jewry. April 2011: 1–25.
Byers, Michele and Jennifer VanderBurgh. “Trafficking (in) the Archive: Canada, Copyright, and the Study of Television.” ESC: English Studies in Canada, 2011: 105–126.
Byers, Michele and Jennifer VanderBurgh. “What Was Canada? Locating the Language of an Empty National Archive.” Critical Studies in Television 5(2). 2010: 105–117.
“The Pariah Princess: Agency, Representation, and Neoliberal Jewish Girlhood.” Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2(2). 2009: 33-54.
Byers, Michele and Diane Crocker. “A Place at the Table and Voice in the Hall: Third Wave Feminism in the Canadian Academy.” Atlantis 32(2). 2009: 19–31.
Byers, Michele and Evangelia Tastsoglou. “Negotiating Ethno-Cultural Identity: The Experience of Greek and Jewish Youth in Halifax.” Canadian Ethnic Studies. 2008: 5–33.
Byers, Michele and Rosalin Kreiger. “From Ugly Duckling to Cool Fashion Icon: Sarah Jessica Parker’s Blonde Ambitions.” Shofar 25(4). 2007: 43–63.
“Material Bodies and Performative Identities: Mona, Neil, and the Promised Land.” Philip Roth Studies 2(2). 2006: 102–120.
Byers, Michele and Rosalin Kreiger. “Beyond Binaries and Condemnation: Opening New Theoretical Spaces in Jewish Television Studies.” Culture, Theory and Critique 42(2). 2005: 131–145.
“Scenes from the Frontier of the Material World: Television Images of Sexuality and Youth.” Studies in Popular Culture. October 2002.
“Gender/Sexuality/Desire: Subversion of Difference and Construction of Loss in the Adolescent Drama of My So-Called Life.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 23(3). 1998: 711–734.
“Constructing Divas in the Academy: Why the Female Graduate Student Emerges in Prime-Time Television Culture.” Higher Education Perspectives Vol. 1. 1996/1997: 99–118.
Book Chapters
“Time, Narrative, Abortion: Revisiting Juno and Parsley Days.” In Abortion in International Popular Culture, eds. Kelli Malloy and Brenda Boudreau. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2025: 239–60.
Byers, Michele and Rachael Collins. ““We’re here for something else”: Mindhunter, serial murder, and the reverential.” Serial Killers on Screen, eds. Claire O’Callaghan and Sarah Fanning. Palgrave, 2023: 323-45.
———. “Exceptional Breeding: the Serial Killer Breeds the Mindhunter.” In Watching the Cops: Essays on Police and Policing in 21st Century Film and Television, eds. Marcus K. Mermes, Barbara Harmes, and Meredith A. Harmes. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc. 2023: 152-66.
“Who’s Late?: Degrassi, Abortion, and Televisual History.” Representing Abortion, edited by Rachel Hurst. New York and London: Routledge, 2021: 75-86.
“Playing with Time: Linguistic Resurrection and the Disruption of Contemporary Jewishness.” Ethnic Media in the Digital Era, edited by Matthew D. Matsaganis and Sherry Yu. NY: Routledge, 2018: 33-44.
“Roseanne.” In Television Finales, edited by Douglas Howard, David Lavery, and David Bianculli. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018: 305-11.
“On the Threshold: British-Jewish Femininity in Suzie Gold (2004)," in Nathan Abrams, ed. Hidden in Plain Sight: Jews and Jewishness in British Film, Television, and Popular Culture. Northwestern UP. 2016: 205-26.
Byers, Michele, Susanne Gannon and Mythili Rajiva. “Things That Stay (and Things That Don’t): Temporality and Affect in Collective Memories of Sexuality, Bodies, and Girlhood.” Reprinted in becoming girl: collective biography and the production of girlhood, edited by Marnina Gonick and Susanne Gannon. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2014: 79–100.
Byers, Michele and Mythili Rajiva. “’Eating Subjects’: Girlhood, Food and Relations of Difference.” In Reprinted in becoming girl: edited by Marnina Gonick and Susanne Gannon. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2014: 101–114.
Gannon, Susanne, Michele Byers and Marnina Gonick. “Girls, Sexuality and Popular Culture: ‘Hey Pony! Come On!’” In Reprinted in becoming girl, edited by Marnina Gonick and Susanne Gannon. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2014: 115–136
Byers, Michele, with Caroline Brunet, Amanda Dickie, Stefanie Frisina, Daniel Gervais, Patrick Russell and Janis Sampson. “From Workshop to Classroom: Collective Biography and Feminist Pedagogy.” In Reprinted in becoming girl, edited by Marnina Gonick and Susanne Gannon. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2014: 211–230.
Byers, Michele and Stephanie Tara Schwartz. “Beyond Whiteness: Theorizing Multicultural Jewish Identity in Canada.” In Critical Canadian Studies, edited by Darryl Leroux et al. Halifax: Fernwood, 2013: 71–84.
“Canadianizing Canadians: Television, Youth, Identity.” In Canadian Television: Texts and Contexts, eds. Marian Bredin, Scott Henderson, and Sarah Matheson. Montreal and Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2012: 115–33.
“Putting on Reena Virk: Celebrity, Authorship, and Identity.” In Reena Virk: Critical Perspectives on a Canadian Murder, eds. Sheila Batacharya and Mythili Rajiva. Toronto: Canadian Scholar’s Press. 2010: 199–234.
“Waiting for the End of the World: Crying at Disaster after ‘9/11’.” In On the Verge of Tears: Why the Movies, Television, Music, and Literature Make us Cry, eds. Michele Byers and David Lavery. Cambridge Scholars Publishing Ltd. 2010: 206–218.
“Neoliberal Dexter?” In Reading Dexter, ed. D. Howard. London: I.B. Tauris. 2010: 143–156.
“Dexter.” In The Essential Cult TV Reader, ed. David Lavery. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. 2009: 90–97.
“My So-Called life.” In The Essential Cult TV Reader, ed. David Lavery. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky. 2009: 174–180.
Byers, Michele and Val Johnson. “CSI as Neoliberalism: An Introduction.” In “The CSI Effect:” Television, Crime, and Critical Theory, eds. Michele Byers and Val Johnson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2009: xiii–xxxvi.
“Canadian Idol and the Myth of National Identity.” In Programming Reality: Perspectives on English-Canadian Television, eds. Zoë Druick and Patsy Kotsopoulos. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2008: 69–84.
“Education and Entertainment: Degrassi does Degrassi Talks.” In Programming Reality: Perspectives on English-Canadian Television, eds. Zoë Druick and Patsy Kotsopoulos. Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2008: 187–204.
“Introduction.” In Dear Angela: Remembering My So-Called Life, eds. Michele Byers and David Lavery. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007: 1–9.
Byers, Michele and Rosalin Krieger. “Something Old Is New Again?: Postmodern Jewishness on The O.C., Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm.” In You Should See Yourself: Jewish Identity in Postmodern American Culture, ed. Vincent Brook. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006: 277–297.
“I Am (A) Canadien(ne): Canadian Girls and Television Culture.” In Transforming Spaces: Girlhood, Agency & Power, eds. Yasmin Jiwani, Claudia Mitchell and Candis Steenbergen. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2005: 227–242.
“Revisiting Teenage Truths: Engaging with Simonetti’s Questions of National Identity and Culture Ten Years Later.” In Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures, ed. Michele Byers. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2005: 31–51.
Byers, Michele and Rebecca Haines. “That White Girl from That Show.” In Growing Up Degrass, ed. Michele Byers. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2005: 167–190.
“Have Times Changed?: Girl Power and Feminism on Degrassi.” In Growing Up Degrassi, ed. Michele Byers. Toronto: Sumach Press, 2005: 191–209.
“Those Happy Golden Years: Beverly Hills, 90210, College Style.” In Imagining the Academy: Higher Education and Popular Culture, eds. Gunilla Holms, Susan Edgerton and Toby Daspit. New York and London: Routledge, 2005: 191–209.
“Race In/Out of the Classroom: Degrassi (Junior High) as Multicultural Context.” In Racism Eh? A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race in the Canadian Context, eds. Charmaine Nelson and Camille Nelson. Captus Press, 2004: 298-315.
“Waiting at the Gate: The New, Postmodern Promised Land.” In Suburban Sprawl: Culture, Theory, and Politics, eds. Hugh Bartling and Matt Lindstrom. Rowan & Littlefield, 2003: 23-44.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Next Generation of Television.” In Catching a Wave: Reclaiming Feminism for the 21st Century, eds. Alison M. Piepmeier and Rory C. Dicker. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2003: 171-87.
Edited Collections
Byers, Michele and David Lavery, eds. On the Verge of Tears: Why the Movies, Television, Music, and Literature Make us Cry. Cambridge Scholars Publishing Ltd. 2010. 260 pages.
Byers, Michele and Val Johnson, eds. “The CSI Effect:” Television, Crime, and Critical Theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2009. 310 pages.
Byers, Michele and David Lavery, eds. Dear Angela: Remembering My So-Called Life. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. 2007. 256 pages.
Growing Up Degrassi: Television, Identity and Youth Cultures. Toronto: Sumach Press. 2005. 310 pages.
Completed Primary Supervision (MA)
Marie-Anne Sergent M.A. WGST (Reader Katie Aubrecht, StFX). Mad/Fem(me): A Neuroqueer Feminist Analysis of Queerness, Femininity, and Mental Health. Dec. 2025.
Sue O’Neill M.A. WGST (Co-supervisor Crystal Geisbrecht, Regina; Reader Rochelle Stevensen, Thompson Rivers). The Impact of the Bond Between Survivors of Gender-Based Violence and Larger Companion, Farmed, and Working Animals. Oct. 2025.
Xin Wen. M.A. WGST (Co-supervisor with Goran Stanivukovic; Reader, Xiaoping Sun). Queering the Translation: Unveiling Chinese Fan-subbed Homosexuality in Queer as Folk. Oct. 2024.
Alo Greening. M.A. WGST. (Reader, DeNel Rehberg-Sedo, MSVU). History, Huh: A Post-Modern Study of the Consumption of Queer Romance. August 2024.
Rachel Ludwin. M.A. WGST. (Reader, Meredith Ralston, MSVU). God Should Have Made Girls Lethal When She Made Monsters of Men: Personal Reflections on Representations of Rape and Women’s Rage in Rape and Revenge Films. August 2024.
Taylor Grimes. M.A. WGST. (Reader, Tatjana Takseva). The Matriarchs of Crime: A Feminist Content Analysis of Mother-Son Relationships in Sons of Anarchy and Animal Kingdom. Feb. 2024.
Tamsin Sloots M.A. WGST (Reader, Julie Hollenbach, NSCAD)— Through Rows and In Stitches – Entangled: a sweater as (an) archive. June 2023.
Johanna Cole M.A. ACST (Co-Supervisor Karly Kehoe; Reader, Lyndan Warner)— Moving through the Margins: An Analysis of Mobility and Interaction in the Sex Trade of St. John's, Newfoundland, 1893-1911. Aug. 2023.
Liz Borden. M.A. WGST. (Reader, Benita Bunjun) As Seen on TV: Deconstructing Non/Monogamies & Polyamory in Popular Culture. May 2022.
Sue Goyette. M.A. WGST (Co-supervisor Marnina Gonick, MSVU; Reader, DeNel Rehberg-Sedo, MSVU). Anthesis: A Generative and Emerging Fabulation. May 2021.
Lakeisha McSweeny. M.A. Criminology (Reader, Racheal Collins). Snapped into the Reality of Female Killers. July 2021.
Alexia Lopez. M.A. WGST (Reader, Goran Stanivukovic). Queer Fairy tales: Sapphic Archetypes. Successful proposal meeting September 17, 2020. August 2021.
Sarah Budgell. M.A. ACST. (Reader, Goran Stanivukovic). Queer Identity: Memory and Place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. December 2021.
Julianne Acker-Verney. M.A. WGST (Co-supervisor Debra Stienstra). Embedding Intersectionality in Accessible & Inclusive Research with Diverse Women with Disabilities. 2021.
Keif-Godbout Kinney. M.A. WGST. (Reader, Teresa Heffernan). AI and Sex Robots: An Examination of the Technologization of Sexuality. Sept. 2020.
Emily Arseneault. M.A. Criminology. (Reader Ardath Whynacht, MtA). “The True North, Strong and Queer?”: (Un)Mapping Discourses of Homonationalism, Colonialism and Activism within the Canadian Prison Reform Movement. Dec. 2019.
Fallen Matthews. M.A. WGST. (Co-supervisor Sailaja Krishnamurti; Reader, Benita Bunjun). Lateral Legion & Likeness: A [Psychoanalytic] Film Study of Siblingship in The Color Wheel. Spring 2018.
Stefanie Frisina. (Reader Jennifer VandeBurgh). M.A. WGST. La Bella Figura: Generations, Identities and the Jersey Shore. Spring 2018.
Faustina Woo. M.A. WGST. (Reader, Val Johnson) The stories of South Korean religious lesbians: The voices of the women struggling with ceaseless conflicts. June 2017.
Heather Baglole. M.A. WGST. (Reader Marnina Gonick) Speak: Questioning Ethics, Feminism, and Representation in Verbatim Theatre. Feb. 2017.
Faraasa Lawrence. M.A. Criminology. (Reader Darrel Leroux). Constructing Narratives/Image-Identity, the Truth & the Jury: State of Florida v. Casey Anthony. March 2016.
Janis Sampson. M.A. WGST. (Reader Sandra Bell). Gender as performance: Girls negotiating their gendered identities. October 2014.
Sarah (MacEachern) Bray. M.A. Criminology. Is there law in a post-zombie world? Deconstructing dominant discourses of violence and power in AMC’s The Walking Dead. September 2014.
Annette McLellan. M.A. Women and Gender Studies. Towards a Vegan Eco-Feminist Critical Care Theory: A Search for a compassionate, responsible, respectful, posthumanist paradigm. May 2014.
Patrick Russell. M.A. Criminology. Oral History Project: Women Survivors of Africville Relocation. April 2013.
Ashley MacPherson. M.A. Criminology. Implanting Empowerment?: A Discourse Analysis of Cosmetic Surgery and Power on The Swan. March 2011.
Melissa Kervin (Tatlock). M.A. Criminology. (Reader, Diane Crocker). From Titanic to Star Wars: A Derridean Deconstructive Analysis of the Minimization of Violence in the 25 Top Grossing Films of All-Time. Winter 2008.
Lyndsay Pearson. M.A. WGST. The Revolution is [just] a T-shirt Away: [T-shirts Activism, Embodied Politics and Third Wave Feminism]. Fall 2008.
Natasha Pinterics. M.A. WGST. Big & Bawdy Bodies: A Feminist/Cultural Studies Analysis of Fat & Frisky Performances. Fall 2005.
Laure Lafrance. M.A. WGST. Femicide and the Politics of Acknowledgement: A Feminist Analysis of News Representations of Lethal Male Violence Against Women. Winter 2005.
Cari-Lyn Clough. M.A. Women’s Studies. She Cleans Therefore She Is. Spring 2003.