Research Interests
power and identitymarginalization in mediapublic sphereRhetoricGender studiesTrans studies
Opportunities
Work Study Positions Available: No
Grant Funded Positions Available: No
Course-Credit Research Opportunities Available: No
Volunteer Research Positions Available: No
Biography
Dr. Miller holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Texas A&M University and an M.A. and B.A. in Communication from the University of Arkansas. She teaches courses on public speaking, rhetoric, and public communication.
Dr. Miller’s research focuses on discourses of power and identity in the contexts of marginalization in media and the public sphere from a critical rhetoric perspective. Systems of power impact all aspects of our lives, from how transgender people are treated in public spaces to how patriarchal oppression of women persists in our genderblind society. Her research connects the disparagements, constraints, and empowerments experienced in our everyday lives to larger systems of power in order to explore the co-constructed nature of identity.
She is the author of two recent books in the areas of gender, rhetoric, and media. Genderblindness in American Society: The Rhetoric of a System of Social Control of Women (Lexington, 2019) analyzes how gender is diminished in public life by a system of genderblindness that removes gender from public persuasive appeals. Distancing Representations in Transgender Film: Identification, Affect, and the Audience (SUNY Press, 2023) analyzes how transgender representations in film are constructed narratively and visually to elicit the affective responses of ridicule, fear, disgust, and sympathy from a cisgender audience in line with a cisnormative ideology.
Dr. Miller’s research also appears in Journal of Communication Inquiry, QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Transformative Works and Cultures, Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Women & Language, the film journal Spectator, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, and multiple book chapters. She is co-editor of Gender in a Transitional Era: Changes and Challenges (Lexington, 2015) with Dr. Amanda Martinez.
