ABOUT

Morgan Bimm (she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish NS, on the traditional and unceded lands of the Mi’kmaq people. Her research focuses on integrating fan studies, popular music studies, and feminist theory, particularly as they relate to the consumption, framing, and cultural afterlives of “girly” texts, music, and aesthetics. Her work is interested in the ways that technology and media work together to produce ideas about cultural relevance and gender. Morgan’s academic writing has appeared in Punk & Post-Punk, Flow, and Journal of Popular Music Studies, as well as a number of scholarly anthologies. She is a former co-chair of the Gender and Feminisms Caucus of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), a current board member of Hike Nova Scotia, and is currently writing about playlists as a feminist research methodology.

  • Morgan Bimm watched 10 Things I Hate About You at an incredibly impressionable age and the rest, as they say, is history. She completed a Bachelor of Journalism with double minors in Sexuality Studies and Film Studies at Carleton University, before going on to complete both an MA and a PhD at York University in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies. Their dissertation, “Girl Music of the Indie Rock Persuasion: Amplifying Indie Through 2000s Girl Culture,” examined the women, girls, and girl culture that played a pivotal role in the cultural mainstreaming of 2000s indie rock music. Her ongoing research focuses on integrating fan studies, popular music studies, and feminist theory, particularly as they relate to the consumption, framing, and cultural afterlives of “girly” texts, music, and aesthetics. Broadly, their work is interested in the ways that technology and media work together to produce ideas about cultural relevance, audiences, and gender. 

    Her academic publications include a journal article on punk activism and social media in Punk & Post-Punk, a co-authored chapter on Carly Rae Jepsen and Canadian cultural nationalism with Andi Schwartz for The Places and Spaces of Canadian Pop Culture (Canadian Scholars Press, 2019), and writing on the messy legacies of 2000s-era music supervision in the forthcoming Rethinking Approaches to Adaptation, Rearrangement, and Music Across Screen Media (Routledge Music & Screen Media Series). They are co-editor of an open access issue of Journal of Popular Music Studies on music podcasting, featuring their own piece on the gendered expertise and affect of pop music podcasts. Morgan’s creative nonfiction has also appeared in outlets like A.Side, Feminist Space Camp Magazine, Shameless Magazine, Feels, and The Niche.

    Community-building is something Morgan strives for both within and outside of academia. She has presented research at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS), the Fan Studies Network of North America (FSNNA), the Punk Scholars Network, PopCon, and various chapters of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). They are a founding and former executive member of the York University Girls' Studies Research Network, a former research associate with the York University Institute for Research on Digital Literacies, and former co-chair of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) Gender and Feminisms caucus. Morgan is a current member of the Hive for Feminist Research and an affiliated faculty member with the Digital Humanities Research Centre at St. Francis Xavier University, and has also previously sat on the steering committee for the Sex Salon Speaker Series, volunteered with Girls Rock Camp Toronto, and climbed with Queer Climbers of Toronto. Morgan is a certified Hiking Field Leader with the Outdoor Council of Canada (OCC) and currently serves on the board of Hike Nova Scotia.

    At St. Francis Xavier University, Morgan teaches courses that explore the intersections between culture and gender, with a focus on helping students understand feminism’s relevance to their daily lives and cultural undertakings. As someone with a deep appreciation for feminist pedagogy, she has participated in multiple pedagogy intensives and workshops, offered virtually through universities as far away as the UK and Australia. Morgan also developed, funded, and facilitated an award-winning critical pedagogies seminar series during their time at York University, partnering with the Queer Student Caucus to deliver peer-to-peer pedagogy training and workshops to graduate students and early career faculty from across the university. She has co-organized a one-day teaching and learning symposium entitled “Fugitive Spaces,” which led to peer-reviewed research on trauma-informed teaching as well as a collaboratively produced, open-access zine published in a special issue of MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture focused on feminist pedagogies. Most recently, Morgan has completed the Maple League of Universities Micro-Certificate in Teaching and Learning, and is an ongoing and enthusiastic member of the League's pedagogy book clubs.    

    Currently, Morgan is writing about playlists as a feminist and queer research methodology. When not writing and teaching, she can usually be found zipping around Antigonish on her beloved vintage bicycle, trolling the aisles of the hardware store for DIY supplies, and taking way too many pictures of Nora.

  • Download a copy of Morgan's scholarly CV here.

  • "Brat Summer." CBC Mainstreet NS with Preston Mulligan. August 27, 2024.

    "Girl Dinner." CBC Mainstreet NS with Jeff Douglas. September 20, 2023.

    "The Barbie Movie." CBC Maritime Noon with Brett Ruskin. August 17, 2023.

    "How Girl Culture Popularized Indie." Name 3 Songs (podcast). June 26, 2022.

    "Extra Salty: Camping Indie Rock Masculinities in Jennifer's Body." IASPM-Canada Popular Music Futures Virtual Speaker Series. November 1, 2021.

    With Andi Schwartz. "The Healing Power of Femme Friendships." The Bisexual Agenda (podcast). August 8, 2021.