E-mail: stephanie.brown@slu.edu
Twitter: @stephbrown
Download CV PDF

I am a comedy, podcast, and television enthusiast who recently finished her doctorate in Media and Communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in the Institute of Communications Research and am currently serving as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Saint Louis University.

In addition to teaching courses in Communication, Media and Cinema Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies, I produce segments for SCMS and Cinema Journal‘s Aca-Media podcast, serve as the grad rep for the SCMS Comedy and Humor Studies Scholarly Interest Group, perform stand-up comedy around Illinois and Missouri, created  an inclusive open mic in Urbana, Illinois, and am in the process of co-launching an after school program called Girls Amplified, which was piloted in the fall of 2015.

In 2018, I also won the University of Illinois Department of Media and Cinema Studies’ Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award and the University of Illinois’ Graduate Student Leadership Award (check out a post about it here!)

My dissertation Open Mic? Gender and the Meritocratic Myth of Authenticity in the Cultural Production of Stand-up Comedy explores gender, labor, and gatekeeping in stand-up comedy as a media industry through several case studies including Lindy West’s debate with Jim Norton about misogyny in comedy on FX’s Totally Biased with W Kamau Bell, the critical reception of television shows about women stand-up comics like Oxygen’s Funny Girls, and interviews with comics with marginalized gender identities and expressions in Champaign and Chicago.  My second project in progress explores television fandom on Twitter, including case studies on Comedy Central’s @midnight and Freeform’s Switched at Birth.  I also do work on gender and television, teen TV, and podcasting.

I received my B.A. in English from Indiana University and my M.A. in Television, Radio, and Film from Syracuse University.  Before returning to school, I worked for the New York Television Festival and for VOX, a voice-over talent agency in Los Angeles.