Jennifer Farrell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
- Milwaukee WI UNITED STATES
- Humanities, Social Science and Communication
Dr. Jennifer Farrell's research interest is science fiction, Victorian literature, and popular culture.
Multimedia
Education, Licensure and Certification
Ph.D.
English
Louisiana State University
2007
M.A.
English
Montana State University
2001
B.A.
English-Creative Writing
University of Montana
1998
Biography
She earned her bachelor's degree in English-creative writing from the University of Montana, her master's in
English from Montana State University, and her doctorate in English from Louisiana State University. She has
extensive teaching experience at universities and colleges in Montana and Louisiana. Farrell joined MSOE in 2008.
She teaches Freshmen Studies I, Freshman Studies III, Science Fiction, American Culture, and literature classes
ranging from Literature of the Developing World, to Classics in Literature, to Fantasy Literature..
Areas of Expertise
Affiliations
- Popular and American Culture Association : Member
- Milwaukee Steampunk Society : Member
- Modern Language Association (MLA) : Member
- Science Fiction Researchers Association : Member
- Lewis Carroll Society of North America : Member
Event and Speaking Appearances
Memory Erasure and Dystopia
National Popular Culture Association Seattle, WA, April 2022
Things I Wish I Knew About Academia
Midwestern Popular Culture Association Professional Development Conference March 2022
“Using Popular Culture in the Classroom: Roundtable and Activities” Focus the game Werewolf in Public Speaking
Midwestern Popular Culture Association Cincinnati, OH, October 2019
Science Fiction Language in Action—Scientology
Midwestern Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference Indianapolis, IN, October 2018
Measuring the Impact of an Interdisciplinary Experiential Learning Activity on Student Learning
National ASEE Conference Salt Lake City, UT, June 24-27 2018
iZombie: Memory Loss, Social Anxiety, and Identity
Midwestern Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference St. Louis, MO, October 18-22 2017
Our Entertainment Will Destroy Us: The Dangers of Escapism in the Worlds of Jeff Noon
Midwestern Popular Culture Association Cincinnati, OH October 2019
Teaching Difficult/Taboo Subjects in Popular Culture
Midwestern Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference Indianapolis, IN, October 4-7 2018
“Everything and the Kitchen Sink: Milwaukee as an Epicenter of Underground Comix”
Wizard World Wisconsin Madison, WI, April 2016
Selected Publications
“Not Just In Factories: Robots in the Bedroom and the Future of Sex.”
Popular Culture StudiesJennifer K Farrell
A special issue focusing on the nature of work and how it might be altered by increasing reliance on robots/AI
Measuring the Impact of an Interdisciplinary Experiential-learning Activity on Student Learning
ASEE Annual Conference & ExpositionNickel, A.M., Farrell, J.K., Domack, A., Mazzone, M.G.E.
2018
An English professor and a chemistry professor from different academic departments collaborated to broaden engineering students’ learning experience in two different engineering elective courses by bringing their students together for an interdisciplinary, experiential-learning activity. Educational pedagogy reports the value of incorporating experiential learning opportunities into course work to greater impact student learning. The courses involved were a humanities elective on science fiction and a science elective on nanotechnology. The mcrossover activity was built on a common theme, the societal impacts of new technologies, in each course. It involved the students presenting content from their course’s discipline to students in the other course in a face-to-face event. The authors reported previously on how these courses were integrated. The effects of the crossover activity on students’ experiences were measured by evaluating learning outcomes in each class and by employing course surveys over a two-year period. The experimental group’s scores on each of the course outcomes, as measured by exam questions, were compared to the control group’s scores on each of the course outcomes while controlling for pre-test scores. Similarly, pre- and post-survey questions for the experimental group were compared to the control group’s responses. Presented data will relate to the evaluation of the hypothesis that students’ mastery of learning outcomes would be greater for those students participating in the integrated coursework as compared to the control group. Included is an evolution of the collaboration and the development of the crossover activity from an asychronistic reading and writing assignment to an interactive, experiential-learning activity. The challenges related to collaborating across departments and associated with measuring student learning will be discussed as well as planned future work in this collaboration.
Psychology is Technology: A Steampunk Reading of Alice: Madness Returns
Science Fiction Film & TelevisionFarrell, J.K.
2015
Despite being 150 years old, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) remain goldmines for pop-cultural references and re-imaginings. What in part makes the works so fascinating is that they appeal to adults and children equally. Martin Gardner suggests that Carroll’s ‘doing away with morals’
opened up an entirely new genre for Victorian children (Gardner 2000: 62). When compared to children’s tales written by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Dickens and Hans Christian Andersen, Carroll’s books are relatively moralfree. Bad people are not necessarily punished and even good ones may be morally ambiguous. Both groups, furthermore, are subject to the violence
common in Victorian children’s tales (cf. McGeorge 1998: 109–17), and to beheading in particular. Gardner points to a tension between depictions of physical violence, and perceptions of real-world emotional or psychological violence: the Queen of Hearts’ ‘constant orders for beheading are shocking to those modern critics of children’s literature who feel that juvenile fiction should be free of all violence and especially violence with Freudian undertones. […] My guess is that the normal child finds it all very amusing and is not damaged in the least’ (Gardner 2000: 82).
Using Service Learning To Teach Students the Importance of Societal Implications of Nanotechnology
ACS Symposium SeriesNickel, A.L., Farrell, J.K.
2014
As the field of nanotechnology develops, resources have been dedicated to studying the societal implications of nanotechnology therefore it is an important topic for an undergraduate course in nanotechnology. A service-learning course project provides students with an opportunity to engage in informing the public because students present topics of nanotechnology to small groups at a local high school. Prior to their service-learning project, students have built a solid understanding of the field and have participated in other assignments that established a theme of the societal implications of nanotechnology. The service-learning course project provides a meaningful learning opportunity that reinforces both the core concepts and the societal implications of nanotechnology.
The Madness Behind the Mask: Grendel’s Pop Culture Revolution.”
The Journal of Popular CultureFarrell, J.K.
2008
"The poet seems determined not to let us forget how temporary are the effects even of good actions in this world."
- Dorthy Whitelock, The Audience of Beowulf
Implementing Informal Writing Assignments and a Feedback and Revision Loop to Enhance Engineering Courses
2008 ASEE Annual Conference & ExpositionWarren N. Waggnespack, Lillian Bridwell-Bowles, Warren Hull, Sr., Jennifer K Farrell, David Bowles
This article written by the Communication across the Curriculum Engineering Stuido at Louisiana State University serves to show how important writing feedback and revision loops are in engineering courses. Students often don't carry over what they learn from English classes to their other courses and by implementing some simple strategies, student writing can improve even outside of the English classroom.
Making Love to the Earth: The Eco-Feminism of Terry Tempest Williams
CarbonFarrell, J.K.
2005
“Framing Alice: New Reading Protocols for Science Fiction.”
The Leading EdgeJenifer K Farrell
This article posits what if Science Fiction and the way we read it comes out of Lewis Caroll's Alice books.
