Melanie Kennedy

My research and teaching are rooted in feminist media and cultural studies.

I am the author of Tweenhood: Femininity and Celebrity in Tween Popular Culture (IB Tauris, 2019), and the co-editor of The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture: Something Old, Something New (Routledge, 2020).

I examine media representations of gendered, age-defined, classed, raced identities (in particular tweens, young female celebrities, and teenage mothers), and the postfeminist and neoliberal popular culture that addresses these subjects. I have published on young female celebrity, tween princess culture, and young female sexuality and purity, in books and journals including Celebrity Studies and Feminist Media Studies.

I am an Associate Editor of Commentary and Criticism for Feminist Media Studies (Routledge).

I joined the University of Leicester in 2016, and before that was a lecturer at the University of Leeds, University of East Anglia and London Metropolitan University.