Dr. Megan Morrissey

Personal Bio:

Dr. Megan Morrissey (she/her/hers) received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder (2013) and joined the UNT Department of Communication Studies in the fall of 2013. She is currently the Director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program an Associate Professor of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication Studies. She is also an affiliated faculty member with the LGBTQ Studies Program, and Latina/o Mexican American Studies Program. Recently. Beyond her service to the department, Dr. Morrissey recently ended her term also an elected officer for the National Communication Association's Rhetorical and Communication Theory division, and on the editorial board for the journals, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and Communication and Race.

As a scholar, the overarching questions that drive Dr. Morrissey's research stem from consideration of the ways that language constitutes/influences the cultural conditions that inscribe people's lives, and who benefits and is disadvantaged by such discursive constructions. Her scholarship is driven by a desire to explore how the ways that people talk about different identities and different bodies influences their inclusion or exclusion from social and/or cultural groups. Her published essays, in-press manuscripts, and other work currently under review apply a critical approach to a variety of nontraditional texts, including video narratives, documentary films, online discussion boards, news media, and reports on human rights.

As an instructor, Megan brings an enthusiasm and interest for how a variety of communicative practices inform the daily aspects of people's lives and is committed to conveying the importance of understanding such practices for participation in the (re)production of those social conditions of which we are all a part. Megan sees the time she spends in the classroom as intimately informed by her research, and the research that she is conducting being equally affected by her teaching. In the fall of 2020, 2021, and 2022, Megan was honored to be a finalist for the CLASS Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award which acknowledged her work with our undergraduates, and in 2022 was selected as the University's sole finalist for the Texas state Minnie Stevens Piper Teaching Award.

Megan has found Texas a surprising place to call home and has been regularly surprised and inspired by the creative and inclusive community she has found in Denton. When she's not writing and researching, Megan can be found sampling local beers, exploring nearby parks, cooking, hosting friends, or throwing parties. She enjoys life in the Little d with her partner, Jenn, their kiddo, Quinn, and their pups, Fig and Raisin.