About Me


A black and white photo of
                        Cara Marta Messina. She is a white, cis woman with short brown hair. She is looking in a mirror putting on blush. She has a tattoo on her left shoulder of Eowyn from Lord of The Rings.

Dr. Cara Marta Messina [she/her/hers]

Assistant Professor in English, Jacksonville State University

  • Digital Rhetoric
  • Fan Studies
  • Game Studies
  • Writing & Rhetoric of Code
  • Feminism, Anti-Racism, & Social Justice
  • Digital Humanities
  • Critical Digital Pedagogy

Contact

Email: cmessina [at] jsu [dot] edu

Follow me on Twitter: @cara_messina

Research

My research meets at the intersection of feminism, fan studies, digital rhetoric, game studies, rhetorical genre studies, and critical digital pedagogy. My current manuscript, Writing Critical Fandoms: Tracing Representations of Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Fanfiction explores critical fan uptakes in fanfiction, or specifically how fans challenge heternormativity, racism, and ableism in their fanfiction composing practices. This manuscript is a revision and extension of my dissertation, The Critical Fan Toolkit, which received honorary mention for the Computers and Composition Distinguished Dissertation Award in 2021.

Pedagogy:

I received the 2019 Kairos Graduate Student Teaching Award. At Jacksonville State University, I teach courses such as Technical Writing, Speech, Writing for the Web, Writing for Podcasts, and Introduction to Game Studies. At Northeastern University, I taught online Writing for Social Media course. I have also taught First Year Writing and Advanced Writing in the Disciplines at St. John's University and Northeastern University. In my FYW courses, which you can read more about here, I integrate fan practices to empower and engage students so they think critically about how narratives may reinforce or challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism.

Service

In the field, I am on the Kairos editorial board and serve on several different committees for the Conference of College of Composition and Communication: The Writing and Rhetoric of Code special interest group and the Assessing Whiteness for Understanding, Equity, and Change committee. At Jacksonville State University, I currently serve on several committees, including the Speech committee, the English Department Reading Series, and the College of Arts and Humanities Strategic Plan Committee.

Previous experience