Spotlight: Dr. McClelland-Nugent

Dr. Ruth McClelland- Nugent is an Associate Professor in the department of History. Her primary research interest is gender and 20th century popular culture in Canada, Britain, and the US though she is broadly interested in popular culture. Her current project, working with a team from the University of South Carolina, is on developing a videogame titled "Desperate Fishwives," which will function as a teaching tool to engage students in the world of a 17th century village and its social problems. She is also working on a book proposal for a history of Wonder Woman as pop culture feminist icon.

Some of the courses Dr. McClelland - Nugent has taught include US History to 1877, Modern World History, Witchcraft Trials and Magic Belief in the Atlantic World, History of Women (US and Canada), Gender and Family History, Historical Research Methods (Piracy), and American Social and Intellectual History. She supervises undergraduate honor theses work as well. Beyond the classroom, she plans to continue scholarship in the area of games, gender and moral panic. She is especially interested in the crossover between anti-Dungeons and Dragons panic in the 70s/80s and suspicion of computers and videogames in the 80s/ 90s.

Dr. McClelland - Nugent's recent publications include "Wonder Woman Against the Nazis: Gendering Villainy in DC Comics" in Monsters in the Mirror: Nazism in Postwar Popular Culture, "The Amazon Mystique: Subverting Cold War Domesticity in Wonder Woman 1945-63" in Coded: Comics in the Era of the Cold War and "Sisterhood is too Powerful for Television: Amazon Matriarchy in Wonder Woman" in Bound By Love: Families in American Television 1953-2010. In the past two years she has presented papers and attended conferences on Film in History in Milwaukee and Popular Culture Association National Conference in San Antonio and St. Louis.