Mikal Gaines, PhD, MA
Assistant Professor of English
School
School of Arts and Sciences
Department
School of Arts and Sciences
Office Location
Fennell 251
Boston
Office Phone Office Phone: 617.735.1063
About
Mikal J. Gaines, Ph.D, is an Assistant Professor of English at MCPHS Boston. He teaches courses in Expository Writing, Introduction to Film, and Speculative Fiction and Film. His work has appeared in American Cinema of the 2010s, Fight the Power: The Spike Lee Reader, Jordan Peele’s Get Out Political Horror, Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema, Spaces and Places of Horror, ASAP/J, Discourse, The Projector, the Journal of Cinema Media Studies, and Literature Interpretation Theory. His research areas include African American literature, film and popular culture, horror and gothic studies, and critical theory.
Education
- Ph.D, The College of William and Mary
- M.A., The College of William and Mary
- B.A., Hampton University
Research Interests
- Black Film, Media, & Literature
- Horror Studies
- Gothic Studies
- Cultural Studies
- Critical Theory
Programs
Featured Affiliations
Black Caucus Co-Chair - Society for Cinema and Media Studies
LinkAmerican Studies Association
LinkModern Language Association
LinkEducation
- Ph.D, The College of William and Mary
- M.A., The College of William and Mary
- B.A., Hampton University
Research Interests
- Black Film, Media, & Literature
- Horror Studies
- Gothic Studies
- Cultural Studies
- Critical Theory
Programs
Publications
- Gaines M. (2023). “After Peele: Get Out’s Influence on the Horror Genre and Beyond” – forthcoming in LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory.
- Gaines M. (2023). “Racing Work and Working Race in Buppie Horror” (in print) in Jason Middleton and Aviva Briefel, Eds., The Labors of Fear: Work in Horror Cinema, University of Texas Press.
- Gaines M. (2022). “Searching for Brother Charles: Naming the ‘Black’ in [Black] Horror” (in print) in Horror Grows Up a dossier for Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Media and Culture.
- Gaines M. (2021). “Paid the Cost to Be the Boss: Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther, and the Future of the Black Biopic.” Renée T. White and Karen Ritzenhoff, Eds. Black Panther, Afrofuturism, Gender, Identity, and the Re-Making of Blackness. Landham, MD: Lexington Books.
- Gaines M. (2021). Review of Samantha Sheppard’s Sporting Blackness: Race, Embodi Critical Muscle Memory. Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, 61(1), 199-202.
- Gaines M. (2021). “2018: Movies and Revolution.” Dennis Bingham Ed., American Movies of the 2010s: Themes and Variations. Rutgers University Press, p.217-239.
- Gaines M. (2020). “Let Them Die Like Lovers.” Black One Shot. ASAP Journal. Retrieved from http://asapjournal.com/11-2-let-them-die-like-lovers-mikal-j-gaines/
- Gaines M. (2020). “They Are Still Here: Possession and Dispossession in the 21st Century American Horror Film” in Francesco Pascuzzi & Sandra Walters, Eds., The Spaces and Places of Horror (pp. 179-201.) Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press.
- Gaines M. (2020). “Staying Woke in Sunken Places, or The Wages of Double Consciousness” in
D. Keeley Ed., Jordan Peele’s Get Out: Political Horror (p.160-173). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. - Gaines M. (2019). “Paid the Cost to Be the Boss: Chadwick Boseman and Mythologizing the Black Superhero.”
- The Projector: A Journal of Film, Media, & Culture, Summer 2019. Retrieved from https://www.theprojectorjournal.com/gaines-paid-the-cost-to-be-boss .
- Gaines M. (2019). “Another Problem with Bird Box: Dying While Black in Horror Film.” Retrieved from http://www.horrorhomeroom.com/another-problem-with-bird-box-dying-while-black-in- horror-film/
- Gaines M. (2014). “Strange Enjoyments: The Marketing and Reception of Horror in the Civil Rights Era Black Press” in Richard Nowell, Ed., Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema (pp.187-201). New York; London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Gaines M. (2011). Entries on “Roger Corman,” “William Friedkin,” “Spike Lee, and “Melvin Van Peebles” in Philip C. DiMare, Ed. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
- Gaines M. (2008). “Spike’s Blues: Re-imagining Blues Ideology for the Cinema.” In Janice D. Hamlet and Robin Means Coleman, Eds., Fight the Power: The Spike Lee Reader (pp.147- 170). NY: Peter Lang Publishing Group.
Awards and Honors
- MCPHS School of Arts and Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award, 2020
More Affiliations
- Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present
- Popular Culture Association