Michelle Miller

Michelle Miller (she/her)

Areas of Expertise (Research):
contemporary comics; teaching and learning; critical care in education; content warnings; trans and queer literature

Areas of Expertise (Teaching):
English Language Learning students; feminist citation and attribution practices; contemporary comics; trans and queer literature

Areas of Expertise (Service):
Research ethics, academic integrity, pedagogy

Overview:
Michelle is a scholar and professor who centers collaboration and collegiality, care and community and pleasure and joy in her practice. A Teaching Stream professor in English Literature, Michelle has been nominated for teaching awards consistently, winning both the Non-Tenure Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019) and the FOLASSIS Award for Teaching (2020). Her popular courses, most notably a fourth year course in Graphic Novels and a second year course in Trans and Queer Literature, invite students to see themselves as theorists, working closely with contemporary representations of gender and sexuality, community and identity across diverse texts.

In her research, Michelle works with comic texts to think through conflicts of contemporary adolescent queerness, bringing compassion and a close eye to representations of difficult moments in rich graphic texts. This work, inflected with (but not adherent to) object relations psychoanalysis and contemporary queer theory, builds on her doctoral work, in Language, Culture and Teaching (York University, 2015). As a Teaching Stream faculty member, Michelle’s research shifted to consider pedagogy more directly, considering the emotional situation of becoming a teacher (SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2016-2017, with David Lewkowich), and then most notably in 2020, when she secured, as PI, a SSHRC Insight Grant to mount Canada’s first large-scale investigation into attitudes and uses of content warnings in postsecondary education (with Natalie Kouri-Towe and Hannah Dyer). Recently, her research attention has focused on speculative futures of care in postsecondary education. With Lori Riva, she is currently mounting a pilot study to study how faculty members and students would design postsecondary education that centres care, in terms of belonging, sustainability, accessibility and equity.

Michelle has an active service record—most notably she serves as the Vice-Chair of the Research Ethics Board and will assume the role of Chair beginning in 2024. She sees the importance of ethical research as connecting to feminist teaching and learning, and aims to shift conversations about research ethics to better reflect the possibilities of planning and conducting rich and care-ful research. She is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design Education (AICAD) IRB/REB Working Group. She is also an active member of University Senate, including the Research subcommittee. She is on the Academic Integrity Working Group, redesigning the University’s Academic Integrity policy.

Education
2015 PhD; Language, Culture and Teaching York University
2009 MFA; Creative Writing University of British Columbia
2007 M.Ed (Policy Studies) Western University
2005 B.Ed (English; Religious Studies) Western University
2004 BA (High Honours, English Literature) Carleton University

Publications
Dyer, H., Kouri-Towe, N. & Miller, M. (accepted, forthcoming). “Reflections on the “Trigger Warning” Debate: Divergent Strategies for Warnings in the Classroom.” In Teaching in the 21stCentury: Reflections on Pedagogy and Curriculum from the Gender and Sexuality Studies Classroom. Edited by Natalie Kouri-Towe. Montreal: Concordia University Press

Miller, Michelle (accepted, forthcoming). "“I Totally Didn’t Read It That Way At All”: Resistant and Queer Readings of Tamaki and Tamaki’s Skim." Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. pp. 26

Lewkowich, D. & Miller, M. (2020). “Because like – and so I don’t – so I think it’s maybe, I don’t know”: Performing traumatic effects while reading Lynda Barry’s "The Freddie Stories." Sequential Art Narratives in Education 2(5). https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sane/vol2/iss5/1/

Miller, M. (2019). “Whatever Else May be Going On:” Sharing Books in Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Changing English 26(4), 405-414. https://www-tandfonline-com.ocadu.idm.oclc.org/doi/epdf/10.1080/1358684X.2019.1654852?needAccess=true

Miller, M. (2017). “‘I Hate You Everything’: Reading Adolescent Bad Feelings in Tamaki’s Skim." English Studies in Canada 43.1, 83-102. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/79/article/678820/pdf?casa_token=U0bXyMWkIiQAAAAA:D-kCs7_uM86KFjZ0vCs2q-IBKp1OPy-gc-VO6AuwU9lVZogi_Olgj3SANalrXRXwVI2c2Ywj7fM

Miller, M (2017). "Taking 'the Plunge': Queer Girls' Adolescence, Risk and Subjectivity in Blue is the Warmest Color." Girlhood Studies 10.1, 39-54. https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2017.100104

Fields, J., Gilbert, G. & Miller, M. (2015). “Sexuality and Education: Toward the Promise of Ambiguity.” In Handbook of Sexualities (pp. 371-87), J. DeLamater and R. Plante (eds). New York: Springer.

Selected Recent Presentations
"Careful Metaphors: Considering Care in Art and Design Education" (with Lori Riva and Travis Freeman). Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design Meeting, Cincinnati, OH. Nov. 2023

"Content Warnings: Risky Discourses and Practices of Freedom." Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design Meeting, Cincinnati, OH. Nov. 2023

"Joyful Composition: Pleasure Reading and Personal Writing in ENGL 1004." Universities Art Association of Canada Annual General Meeting. Banff Centre for the Arts, AB. Oct. 2023

"Access Moves for Teaching: Content Notes.” Presentation for Academic Year Kick-Off, OCADU FCDC, Toronto. Sept. 2023

“Content Notes.” Presentation to the Inclusive Pedagogy Working Group, Brock University, St. Catharines ON (online). May 2023

“Considering Content Warnings.” Presentation for Content Warnings in Legal Education. Osgoode Law School, York University, Toronto ON (online). Mar. 2023

“Content Warnings as an Act of Care.” Presentation for Building Safe(r) Spaces in the Classroom: Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto ON (online). Apr. 2021