LEIGH H. EDWARDS, Assistant Professor, Ph.D. in English University of Pennsylvania (1999), M.A. in English University of Pennsylvania (1993), B.A. Duke University (1992). Dr. Edwards specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. literature and popular culture, with particular emphasis on interdisciplinary American studies and media studies approaches and on intersections of gender and race.

She is the author of the book Johnny Cash's Contradictions: Race and Masculinity in American Popular Culture (Indiana University Press, 2008). Her study examines how Cash's work and image illuminate key foundational tensions in the history of American thought. Her book manuscript Reality TV's Family Values: Narrative, Ideology, and New Domestic Forms investigates how reality programming re-imagines ideals of "the American family."

Her current research includes a book-length study of representations of racial mixture in nineteenth-century and twentieth-century U.S. literature and popular culture. The project, entitled Blood Plot: Race Mixing in U.S. Literature and Popular Culture, examines how tropes of mixture work to establish national identity and ideas of personhood in this cultural expression.

Her teaching interests include: U.S. literature and popular culture in a global frame from the nineteenth century to the present; media studies, particularly television studies and popular music studies; American studies; cultural studies; Women's Studies; cultural theory, including critical theories of gender and race; literature and history.

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

• Johnny Cash's Contradictions: Race and Masculinity in American Popular Culture, Indiana University Press, 2008.
• "The Endless End of Frontier Mythology: PBS's Frontier House," Film & History 37.1, 2007.
• "Dangerous Minds: The Woman Professor on Television," in Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture, ed. Sherrie A. Inness, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
• "Chasing the Real: Reality Television and Documentary Forms," in Docufictions: Essays on the Intersection of Documentary and Fictional Filmmaking, ed. John Parris Springer and Gary Rhodes, McFarland Press, 2006.
• "Walkin' Contradiction: Johnny Cash and American Ambivalence," in Literary Cash: Fiction and Non-Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, ed. Bob Batchelor, BenBella Books (mass market trade collection), 2006.
• "'What a Girl Wants': Gender Norming on Reality Game Shows," Feminist Media Studies 4.2, Summer 2004.
• "The United Colors of Pocahontas: Synthetic Miscegenation and Disney's Multiculturalism," Narrative 7.2, May 1999.
• "Olga Broumas," "Aurora Levins Morales," "Milcha Sánchez-Scott," "May Swenson," in The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States, ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner Martin, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• "Taste and Television," FLOW: A Critical Forum for Television and Media Culture, Special Conference Issue, November 2006.
• Writer for PopMatters, an international magazine of cultural criticism by scholars published on-line at PopMatters.com.

CURRENT RESEARCH

• "Family Feud: The Miscegenation Pamphlet Hoax and the Civil War" (article).
• "Reality TV and the New American Family" (article).

AWARDS

• University Teaching Award, Florida State University, 2004.
• National Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, 1992-1997.