Teaching Assistants

James Francis
Graduate Teaching Assistant, English Department, MTSU

Office: PH 105; Phone/Voice Mail: 904-8262

I am a fourth-year PhD candidate in English with an emphasis in Children's Literature and Film. I received my BA and MA at Texas A&M University in creative writing, specializing in poetry and prose/short fiction. My dissertation focuses on the contemporary horror film remake and its influences upon film culture. I grew up on horror films, not children's books, so if you have a question about a horror film, feel free to ask ... chances are I have probably seen it. I am considered a BtVS scholar/critic and serve as a board member to Watcher Junior - The Undergraduate Journal of Buffy Studies. I am also a published photographer in the UK, France, Brazil, Australia, Spain and the U.S. In my free time I like to discuss movies, television, and other pop culture vices with Becky Bobbitt.

Conference Papers:

"Selfless": Locating Female Identity in Anya/Anyanka Through Prostitution (paper presented at the Slayage Conference on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nashville, TN, May 2004).

The Triadic Self: Breaking the Binary in Superhero Character Construction (paper presented at the Holy Men in Tights: A Superhero Conference, Melbourne, Australia, June 2005).

Childhood Terrors: The Importance of Horror Films in Children's Literature (paper presented at the EGSO Re-Visioning Conference, Murfreesboro, TN, May 2006).

Fairy Tale to Adult Film: The Conversion of Children's Literature to R-Rated Movie (paper presented at the 33rd Annual International Conference of the Children's Literature Association on Transformations, Manhattan Beach, CA, June 2006).

Bloody Bodies: The Landscape of Fairytale and Folklore Horror Film Adaptations for Women (paper presented at the MTSU Women's Studies Interdisciplinary Conference on Performing Gender, Murfreesboro, TN, February 2007).

Remake Reanimated: Why the Contemporary American Horror Remake Won't Die (paper presented at the PCAS/ACAS Conference, Jacksonville, FL, September 2007)

Reaver Madness: Joss Whedon's Undead Evolution from Ubervamp to Cannibalistic Terror (paper presented at the Slayage Conference on the Whedonverses, Arkadelphia, AR, June 2008).

Publications:

Francis, James. "Camping Out: Sexuality as Aesthetic Value in Tennessee Williams's And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens..." The Tennessee Williams Annual Review 9 (2007).

Francis, James. "Horror Films and Film Noir." LGBTQ America Today. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.