Mary Celeste Kearney

Biography

Professor Kearney’s research focuses primarily on gender, youth, and media culture. She recently won an NEH fellowship to complete her second monograph, Designing the Teenage Girl: The Debut of a Popular Character (Fall 2026, University of Texas Press), which examines narrative, visual, and sound design in early representations of American teenage girlhood. She has recently co-edited the second edition of The Craft of Criticism with FTT professor Michael Kackman. Professor Kearney’s essays have appeared in Camera Obscura, Cultural Studies, Feminist Formations, Feminist Media Studies, the Journal for Children and Media, and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies. Her essay, "Sparkle: Luminosity and Post-Girl Power Media" (Continuum 29.2) won the 2016 Katherine Singer Kovács Essay Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Professor Kearney is the academic editor for the book series Routledge Research in Gender, Sexuality, and Media, as well as an editorial board member for Feminist Media Studies. She helped to found Girls Rock Michiana, a joint venture of The Music Village and the St. Joseph County Public Library and devoted to inspiring girls' creativity, confidence, and collaboration via music.

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