Kirsten Pike

About

Kirsten Pike is an assistant professor in residence at Northwestern University in Qatar. She received a PhD in screen cultures from Northwestern University and MA and BA degrees from the University of Arizona and Tulane University, respectively. She has held postdoctoral fellowships in television studies at Stockholm University and University College Dublin and was a former Fulbright Scholar in South Korea.

Her teaching and research interests include girls’ media culture, feminist media studies, and critical history/theory of television and film. Her research has appeared in such publications as Feminist Media Histories, Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, Television & New Media, and Reality Gendervision: Sexuality and Gender on Transatlantic Reality TV.

Teaching

• MIT 230 Understanding Media Contexts
• MIT 321 Radio/TV/Film Authorship—Disney
• MIT 325 Film, Media and Gender—Girls’ Media Culture
• MIT 398 Special Topics: Feminist Media Historiography
• MIT 398 Special Topics: Empowering Women through Feminist Media Production & Criticism

Research

• Feminist media studies
• Girls’ and children’s media studies
• Critical history/theory of television and film
• Disney media in the Middle East

Publications

Pike, K. (2018). Disney in Doha: Arab Girls Negotiate Global and Local Versions of Disney Media. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 11: 72-90.

Pike, K. (2018). Mediating the Majlis: Arab Girls’ Documentaries about ‘Women’s Gatherings’ in Qatar. In Blue, M. G. and Kearney, M. C. (Eds.), Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, vol. 2, 193-211. New York: Peter Lang. 

Pike, K. and Khalil, J. F. (2017). Gender, Music Videos, and Arab Youth: The Curious Case of Mini Studio. In Sakr, N. and Steemers, J. (Eds.), Children’s TV and Digital Media in the Arab World: Childhood, Screen Culture and Education, 138-162. London: I.B. Tauris.

Pike, K. (2015). Managing Female Adolescence in Disney’s Witch Mountain Movies during the Women’s Liberation Era. Feminist Media Histories 1.1: 112-152.

Pike, K. (2015). Princess Culture in Qatar: Exploring Princess Media Narratives in the Lives of Arab Female Youth. In Forman-Brunell, M. and Hains, R.C. (Eds.), Princess Cultures: Mediating Girls' Imaginations and Identities, 139-160. New York: Peter Lang.

Keller, J., Blue, M., Kearney M.C., Pike, K., and Projansky, S. (2015). Mapping New Methodological Approaches to Girls’ Media Studies: Reflections from the Field. Journal of Children and Media 9.4: 528-535.

Mitchell, J., Paschyn, C., Mir, S., Pike, K., and Kane, T. (2015). In Majaalis Al-Hareem: The Complex Professional and Personal Choices of Qatari Women. DIFI Family Research and Proceedings 4: https://doi.org/10.5339/difi.2015.4

Pike, K. (2014). Freaky Five-Year-Olds and Mental Mommies: Narratives of Gender, Race, and Class in TLC’s Toddlers & Tiaras. In Weber, B. R. (Ed.), Reality Gendervision: Sexuality and Gender on Transatlantic Reality TV, 282-298. Durham: Duke University Press.

Negra, D., Pike, K., and Radley, E. (2013). Gender, Nation, and Reality TV. Television & New Media 14.3: 187-193. 

Negra, D., Pike, K., and Radley, E. (Eds.) (2013). Special issue on gender and reality TV. Television & New Media 14.3: 187-260.

Pike, K. (2012). “Music Videos: Representations of Men." In Kosut, M. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Gender in Media, 242-245. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Pike, K. (2011). Lessons in Liberation: Schooling Girls in Feminism and Femininity in 1970s ABC Afterschool Specials. Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4.1: 95-113.

Pike, K. (2011). ‘The New Activists’: Girls and Discourses of Citizenship, Liberation, and Femininity in Seventeen, 1968-1977. In Kearney, M. C. (Ed.), Mediated Girlhoods: New Explorations of Girls’ Media Culture, 55-73. New York: Peter Lang.

Awards & Grants

• Research Grant (with Jocelyn Mitchell [PI], Christina Paschyn, Tanya Kane, Sadia Mir, and Justin Gengler) for “Qatari Women: Engagement & Empowerment.” $150,000 from Qatar National Research Fund, Undergraduate Research Experience Program: 2014 – 2015
• Unity Award (with Jocelyn Mitchell and Christina Paschyn) for helping to unify NU-Q’s programs in Communication, Liberal Arts, and Journalism through collaborative work: 2014
• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Television Studies, Stockholm University, Department of Cinema Studies: 2012
• Postdoctoral Fellowship in Television Studies, University College Dublin, School of English, Drama and Film: 2011
• Finalist, National Women’s Studies Association/University of Illinois Press First Book Manuscript Contest: 2011